It’s a big day for Helldivers 2 fans. The sci-fi extraction shooter finally lets them plant flags anywhere they want, including on enemies. The morale boost from spreading the spirit of “mission accomplished” throughout the galaxy boosts weapon handling and defense for all players in the surrounding radius. Unfortunately, it’s also now kicking them out of the game.
“Thanks to some groundbreaking military research into pointier flag tips, the flag can now be proudly planted directly into enemies—dead or alive—ensuring the eternal colors of Super Earth are never tainted, only quenched by the blood of its foes,” reads the 01.003.200 patch note for the buffed CQC-1 One True Flag.
Players have been hoping for an overhaul to the stratagem for months now, but it didn’t take them long to realize that something wasn’t right. Anytime a player summons a succulent Helldivers flag and plants it—whether on a pelican ship or exo-suit—everyone else in their session gets booted. Absolute democracy manifest.
“They did say a surprising amount of code went into the flag planting…” one fan wrote on the game’s subreddit. Instead of improving weapon handling or defense for all players in the surrounding area, as some have requested, the flag remains mostly useless meme-bait, now with the added downside of being busted. Not everyone is complaining though. “Why can’t we just let the joke weapon be a joke weapon?” wrote one supporter.
“We are aware of issues surrounding the One true flag and are investigating a fix,” Arrowhead Game Studios announced on the Discord server this morning. For now, players are advised not to use it unless they want to needlessly troll their friends or the randos they get matched with. Hopefully, it all gets fixed in time for the new battle pass rewards dropping later this week.
July 17 sees the Control Group Warbond added to Helldivers 2. Among the new toys for players to mess around with are an A/LAS-98 Laser Sentry that will blowup if it stays on for too long and a Dark Fluid jetpack that lets players warp short distances. It could all lead to a completely new meta just in time for Xbox players to join when the game gets ported in August. We’re now 18-months in, but Arrowhead has promised it has years of updates still planned.