After Helldivers 2 cheaters undercut its latest Major Order by turning in millions of bug bits at once, Arrowhead canceled the whole thing with an in-universe justification: 'The ones submitting false samples have had their pet fish summarily executed'

A Helldiver charges through the fire and flames in Helldivers 2. — (Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

In an in-game message to players today, Arrowhead Games has revealed that cheaters short circuited Helldivers 2's latest Major Order. The studio has given out its intended reward to all non-cheating players, and in typical Helldivers fashion, couched the whole thing in Super Earth-appropriate terms within the fiction.

"Super Earth High Command has detected a large batch of counterfeit samples within the delivery of the last Major Order," the message reads. "As is customary, Medals have been awarded to all Helldivers who honorably performed their duties, and the ones submitting false samples have had their pet fish summarily executed.

The Major Order to collect millions of samples of Terminid matter was set to run for four days, with some players complaining of the difficulty of the assignment. After two thirds of the objectives were done and dusted within a few hours, though, it was clear that something was amiss. It's unclear exactly how this was achieved, but despite boasting anti-cheat software, there are plenty of hackers in the co-op Helldivers 2, some of whom even sell their services digging up unreleased vehicles, activating god mode, or just skipping the grind for other players. Unique5673 on the Helldivers subreddit points to known "sample duplication cheats" as a potential culprit.

This disruption is in keeping with some of the more restive behavior we've seen from the Helldivers 2 player base in recent weeks: some even deliberately ignored a previous Major Order to protest a flamethrower getting nerfed, and the subreddit is rife with complaints (and some messages of admiration) about so-called "Chaosdivers." Whatever the legitimacy of their complaints, I appreciate how Arrowhead kept things moving forward without missing a beat on Helldivers 2's reactive, emergent storytelling. Now a moment of silence for all the fish that suffered because of this boondoggle.

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.