Helldivers 2: Uncovered – Third Enemy Faction Teased on In-Game Map

The eternal cat-and-mouse game between gamers and game devs! Helldivers 2 players thought they’d spotted the elusive Illuminate faction on the Galactic War map, but developer Arrowhead Game Studios has quickly poured cold water on the theory, declaring the whole thing “fake news”. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The sighting in question began with a mysterious cluster of purple sectors on the map, a color previously reserved for Automaton and Terminid incursions. And then, there’s the small purple symbol – the circle-in-a-circle design – which longtime fans will recognize as the Illuminate’s insignia from the first Helldivers game. Ah, but the developer’s quick to dismiss this as a “recent server outage” caused by a decomposing Comms Technician in a server farm. Yeah, sure…

On social media, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani has even chimed in with a two-word response: “fake news”. This might ring a bell, considering the time their chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt dismissed player claims of flying Terminids as mere “bug sympathizers”. Ah, but we know how that turned out.

Meanwhile, Helldivers 2 is still reeling from the fallout of its major Escalation of Freedom update in August. Players were not thrilled with the changes, prompting Arrowhead to commit to a 60-day plan to address “fundamental inconsistencies” in their game balance and direction. Hmm, does this mean the Illuminate will be making a proper appearance soon? Or was the whole thing just a clever diversion? We’ll have to keep our eyes on the skies – or, rather, the Galactic War map – to find out.