Helldivers 2 has been infested with winged bugs, and it's up to us to squash them

Helldivers 2 is continuing its strong reign by introducing yet another round of space bugs for us to deal with. Also, some of them seem to be flying. What's that all about Joel?!

Earlier this week, developer Arrowhead released another patch for Helldivers 2 that made adjustments to the spawn rate of those heavily armoured Terminid enemies, sorted out some lingering crash issues and made other general UI improvements.

But, it also seemed to sneak in some flying bug enemies to the game without telling us. Huh!

Several players have noticed multiple flying creatures now inhabiting Helldivers 2, as you can see in the embed below.

Of course, this garnered a lot of attention online, and this attention subsequently caught the eye of Helldivers 2 director Johan Pilestedt. So, naturally he addressed concerns by, erm, denying everything.

Oh weird, there are three mushrooms. Oh hello there, Cock Rock. OH SWEET LIBERTY! WHAT ARE THOSE!??
byu/Projectpatdc inHelldivers

"I want to officially refute such preposterous claims. Everyone knows that 'Bugs can't fly'," the developer quipped. "And I'm not alone in thinking this. The Ministry of Truth agrees that this is propaganda from bug sympathisers that want to brainwash good people."

Well, that may be the line Pilestedt wants to take, but soon after these airborne beasties were spotted, a major operation was launched by the Super Earth Ministry of Intelligence, tasking all Helldivers with sorting out an infestation. This will all be done by covering affected areas in the Umlaut Sector with what is essentially pesticide.

"The Terminid control system has been constructed by SEAF engineers on all barrier planets," the Super Earth Ministry of Intelligence implored. "However, the Terminids swarmed across all four planets, forcing evacuation. The Helldivers are called to activate the TCS. Once activated, it will inoculate each planet with Termicide, quarantining the bugs permanently."

Now, I appreciate the ministry's optimism here saying that quarantining the bugs will be a permanent thing, but, I have a funny feeling that Joel and the rest of the Arrowhead team may have something different in mind further down the line. My money is on some kind of unexpected mutation side-effect. I guess we shall have to wait and see.

Helldivers 2 has been a monumental success for Arrowhead and PlayStation, and the fact that the developers are keeping us all on our toes is no small part of that. On its initial release, it quickly became PlayStation's biggest Steam launch ever and currently has an all-time concurrent peak of over 458,000 players.

"With its high-chaos, high-comedy firefights, it's a riot to play with friends," Emma Kent wrote in Eurogamer's Helldivers 2 review, awarding it four stars.