Wake up! These spider-looking phenomena just spotted on Mars are clearly Helldivers 2 bugs preparing for a surprise attack

Helldivers soldier in front of satellite imagery of Mars
(Image credit: ESA/TGO/CaSSIS, Arrowhead Game Studios)

Stop me if you've heard one of these lines of propaganda before. Bugs can't fly. The Automatons haven't developed aerial gunships yet. There's no such thing as a heavy machine gun. These images from the surface of Mars are just "seasonal eruptions of carbon dioxide gas," not thousands of alien spiders gathering for an imminent attack on us, the good citizens of Super Earth.

Yeah, right.

Our colleagues over at Live Science and the esteemed members of the scientific community on whom they report seem convinced that this satellite imagery of the surface of Mars is perfectly innocent, despite all appearances to the contrary. "The dark, spindly formations were spotted in a formation known as Inca City in Mars' southern polar region. Images taken by ESA's Mars Express orbiter and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter show dark clusters of dots that appear to have teeny little legs, not unlike baby spiderlings huddling together," Live Science writes.

"The formations are actually channels of gas measuring 0.03 to 0.6 miles (45 meters to 1 kilometer) across. They originate when the weather starts to warm in the southern hemisphere during Martian spring, melting layers of carbon dioxide ice. The warmth causes the lowest layers of ice to turn to gas, or sublimate."

At PC Gamer, we're not so easily fooled. After months of Arrowhead Studios' lies and deception, we recognize a mounting Helldivers threat when we see one. Clearly the bugs have made it to the Sol System—we recognize a scuttling horde of vile Terminids when we see them.

Suspiciously, there's zero mention of this impending threat on any of Arrowheads' social media channels. Not so much as a clue as to the dire threat that awaits Super Earth. Ha! What better proof of a cover-up? Arrowhead's recent orders pitting the community against wave after wave of Automatons is clearly misdirection from the real threat, which will be sprung upon us any day now.

While they may not have been able to see through game master Joel's devious ruse, we applaud our fellow writers at Live Science and the European Space Agency for detecting this threat before it reaches us. With luck, our bravest helldivers will soon be en route to Mars to eradicate this so-called "carbon dioxide gas" threat with their most trusty tools: shotguns, explosives, and orbital bombardments. 

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Read more
helldivers 2
'Never thought I'd go back' Helldivers 2 players steel themselves to return to the site of its most infamous battle, Malevelon Creek
The Super Earth Spokesperson from Helldivers 2 looks nervously over his shoulder, while stood in front of a very democratic-looking "black hole" in Helldivers 2.
Sweet liberty, the Illuminate are moving an entire wormhole across Helldivers 2's galaxy map to slam dunk it into Super Earth like a basketball
helldivers 2 angel's venture
A black hole just annihilated a beloved Helldivers 2 planet, and now it's on a direct course for Super Earth
A screenshot of Helldivers 2, depicting a Helldiver saluting while wearing an anthropomorphic facemask
The United Nations asked Helldivers 2 studio Arrowhead if it'd give a talk on psychological manipulation: ‘Could we brainwash an entire community to fight for a fascist state? … Would we be okay with that? Turns out, yeah’
Earth vs Mars screenshot - Martian troopers vs Earth light tanks
Relic's new project is a 'smaller indie-style' game about a martian invasion of Earth
A female astronaut suffers from a horrible alien growth on her face in Directive 8020
Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Game launches John Carpenter's the Thing into space this October
Latest in Third Person Shooter
Steel Hunters hands-on
Steel Hunters is like a more tactical Titanfall, but as an extraction shooter it's undermined by boring loot
helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 composer recalls stomping around his apartment and channeling 'Super Patriotism' to capture Arrowhead's satirical vision in music: 'The satire works because the music believes it's a pure patriotic love without irony or criticism'
farcana
'The Middle East's answer to Marvel Rivals' is an 'AI-powered', crypto-infused hero shooter that looks like hot garbage
Marvel Rivals characters - Invisible Woman preparing to cast a shield.
'Searches for Invisible Woman went up 3,000%': Marvel Rivals devs innocently reflect on how popular some of their heroes have become
A Helldiver charges through the fire and flames in Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 CCO Johan Pilestedt says the industry's got it backwards by putting features over fundamentals: 'We talk way too little about the core philosophy'
Marvel Rivals codes - Venom and other heroes
'A developer who actually listens': Marvel Rivals' devs fix accidental Peni Parker nerf just 9 short hours after saying they would
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'