In case you've not been paying attention to your Super Earth mandated briefings, Helldivers 2 players have been entrenched in a defensive war with the Automatons for a while now—and while there've been some perceived problems from the playerbase (and yours truly), I can't deny that Arrowhead has hit a bullseye on its intended goal to make a rad as hell emergent story.

Even this second major order has spawned countless memes, propaganda posters, and an entire “robot vietnam” planet that, like, 30,000 individual people have been glued to for almost zero tactical benefit. They just think it's neat. But it's officially over—those damned dirty robots won.

We lost the major order—so what comes next? Veld. That's it. While the war against the Automatons has been a long, drawn-out campaign, the next major order is “Hey. Go liberate a single planet.” Should be simple, right? Nice breezy mission. In and out, one day at the least, get a quick 45 warbond medals. Right?

I decided to hop and liberate some oil from the planet for Super Earth myself, and aside from some distinctly Creek-ian jungle vibes, I didn't find much amiss. It was a standard 'kill bugs' mission. I laughed, my squad mates laughed, a bug laughed, we killed the bug. It was a good time. Then I double checked the Discord and everyone was having a heart attack.

Alright, here's the reason for the scare—courtesy of helldivers.io and a few boffins that are currently tearing their hair out on the Helldivers 2 Discord as we speak. Veld initially had a recovery rate of around 7%. That's how many percentage points an hour the bugs get on the planet, and the number players need to outpace and win that particular tug of war.

Initially, 80,000 souls barely made a dent at around 2% liberation rate per hour. If they wanted to skip over 7% and start making progress—well, they'd have needed around 300,000 soldiers with their boots on the ground. Though some of those predictions may have been premature. Looking at helldivers.io, those mavericks are currently pulling off a 6% liberation rate with just over half that number.

Fortunately, it looks like Arrowhead Games has its hand on the wheel. In literally the time it took me to write that paragraph, Veld's regen dropped to 3%, and the 180,000 souls currently squashing bugs have begun to take back the planet in record time. If the current pace continues, players will achieve victory in under 24 hours, though the needle on the current estimate is shifting all over the place. Someone is fiddling with the dials behind the scenes.

Considering I just watched a 7% to 3% swing happen before my very eyes, I'm sure a third shoe is about to drop. The full toll Veld is about to take on the community will become clear the moment the numbers settle, but at the moment the fireworks sure are something.