How to get Medals in Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 Medals - A soldier and some jets
(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Grabbing as many Medals as you can in Helldivers 2 is a key aspect of progression, as you spend them in the Warbond store to unlock new weapons, armour sets, and Boosters to help tackle higher difficulties. If you also have the premium Warbond, you might have noticed that it requires an astronomical sum in order to claim everything.

Luckily, there are a few consistent ways to get Medals even if you aren't necessarily earning loads by completing missions. For those who've just started, you might be curious about what the best Stratagems are, or want to know how to kill Chargers quickly so they're less annoying. Either way, here's how to get Helldivers 2 Medals and progress your Warbond. 

The best ways to get Medals

There are a few ways to get Medals in Helldivers 2. Here are the best methods:

  • The fastest way to get Medals is to complete your Personal Order—this is effectively a daily challenge that you can see on the right side of the screen when choosing a mission at the starmap. These are extremely lucrative, so well worth doing for progression even if you aren't playing that much.
  • You earn Medals for completing missions and earn extra for completing multiple missions that are part of the same Operation. In challenging difficulty, for instance, you'll get three Medals for completing the first mission in an Operation, and five Medals for completing the second. On higher difficulties, Operations consist of more missions, and so the Medal bonuses for completing them stack even higher. With this in mind, it's better to choose short missions like fighting Terminid Swarms or blitz missions to destroy bug holes.
  • You can find Medals during missions by looking for points of interest. These are generally contained in the crashed pods that you have to salute to open, or in the two button vaults. It's pretty random whether you'll get a Medal, credits, or a weapon, so I wouldn't go around farming these. Instead it's better to just grab one if you happen to be nearby for the occasional extra.

Once you've got your Medals, you can use them to purchase new items in the Warbond store by accessing Acquisitions on your ship. Each page of the Warbond requires you to spend a certain number of Medals to unlock the next, but that generally doesn't require you to buy everything, so try to be tactical with your purchases.

Sean Martin
Senior Guides Writer

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.

Read more
Spartan armour in Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2's new Warbond lets you kit out as Spartan super-soldier
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 money: Two people sat at a table playing a dice game next to a wooden building.
How to make money in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
helldivers 2 illuminids
Helldivers 2 boss hopes Illuminates will be a 'tremendous challenge' for hardened vets of the galactic war
Monster Hunter Wilds Ancient Wyvern Coins - Happy Wudwud
How to get Ancient Wyvern Coins in Monster Hunter Wilds
A screenshot of Helldivers 2, depicting a Helldiver saluting while wearing an anthropomorphic facemask
Helldivers 2's latest warbond adds a stratagem I've craved since the galactic war started, a portable hellbomb
helldivers 2 urban legends
Last night's surprise Helldivers 2 update also added its first FOMO weapon: The stun baton is only in the rotating Superstore right now
Latest in Action
Monster Hunter Wilds palico
One of the biggest victories of Monster Hunter Wilds' streamlining is I don't have to deal with those awful gimmick fights anymore
A young witch watering a smiling mushroom in a magic garden
Here's a roguelite dungeon crawler Steam reviewers call 'a botanical Diablo' and 'like Cult of the Lamb' except you manage a mystical garden
Chatacabra from Monster Hunter Wilds
The latest Monster Hunter Wilds event quest gives piles of Armor Spheres for hunting a Chatacabra, making this a very bad week to be a frog in the Forbidden Lands
A hunter posing with an absurd Blangonga outfit in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Attention, fashion hunters: There's a Monster Hunter Wilds mod to disable all those obnoxious glowing buff effects that distract from your fits
A red Porsche spaceship in front of a red planet
Naughty Dog's next game is definitely steering clear of controversy: 'Let's do something that people won't care as much about. Let's make a game about faith and religion'
Olivia, Alma and a palico
I wish Monster Hunter Wilds wasn't so afraid of letting me play Monster Hunter
Latest in Features
Monster Hunter Wilds palico
One of the biggest victories of Monster Hunter Wilds' streamlining is I don't have to deal with those awful gimmick fights anymore
A vampire with a dark castle and swarms of bats in the background.
We need to decide on a genre name for Vampire Survivors-like games before a really terrible one sticks
Olivia, Alma and a palico
I wish Monster Hunter Wilds wasn't so afraid of letting me play Monster Hunter
SteelSeries QcK Performance mouse pads overlapping on a desk
The SteelSeries QcK Performance series has reignited my excitement over the simple pleasure of a quality mouse pad… and trying to click skulls with pinpoint accuracy
OneXPlayer 2 pro on a table
I never thought a handheld PC bloated with Windows could replace my Steam Deck, but after gaming on an old OneXPlayer 2 Pro I can see now I judged it too harshly
A screenshot from the original Assassin's Creed game
Assassin's Creed: Shadows is just around the corner, so come and see the last 17 years of the series' PC graphics at max 4K settings