Helldivers 2 players facing an impossible choice convince Game Master to bend the rules

Following one of the easiest Major Orders in Helldivers 2 history, players are now faced with an impossible choice that’s seen them reach out and successfully have the rules changed over the weekend to help them out.

This week, players obliterated 2 billion Terminids in under 24 hours, a Major Objective that had a spacious time limit of 6 days. However, what followed was a campaign against Helldivers from both Terminid and Automaton fronts. Players must choose which enemy they’d rather allow to gain ground in this impossible situation, but they’ve managed to convince Helldivers 2 Game Master Joel to help them out with it comes to one particular planet and the supply lines mechanic.

Players convinced Joel to manually win the Charon Prime defense campaign if they successfully liberate Martale in Helldivers 2

The current Major Order in Helldivers 2 requires players to defend 10 planets across the Terminid and Automaton sectors successfully. One of these worlds, Charon Prime, is linked to another in the Andromeda sector, Martale. Players checked the supply lines to Charon Prime on Helldivers.io and found that if they successfully liberated Martale, it would prevent Automaton forces from reaching Charon Prime, thus ending the defense campaign there.

This is completely true, but with the way Helldivers 2‘s war campaigns work, the planet would still need to be defended from the forces already present on it. After players reached out to Game Master Joel on the official Discord server, the dev team responded explaining that Joel would manually end the Charon Prime defense campaign if players liberated Martale in time.

Unfortunately, the defense campaign on Charon Prime ended while Martale was 94% liberated. Helldivers 2 players were 6% short of liberating one planet and succeeding in the Martale gambit. As you can see in the image above, Martale is now unavailable, meaning the AUtomatons have cut us off from it and are slowly succeeding in their march toward Super Earth.

This is but one small part of a much more complex overarching Major Order, though. In the past, players have coordinated to take planets in order and beat back whichever faction threatens Super Earth’s liberty. This time, they have to choose between Automaton and Terminid defense campaigns strategically. Meaning no matter what they do, one faction will gain ground.

Developer Arrowhead Game Studios has outlined to Helldivers 2 players how this Major Order is meant to feel impossible and result in losses. It’s an assault on two fronts, and players will be unlikely to hold them all. In-game, this equates to multiple defense campaigns across both territories that each have the same time limit.

While with proper use of the supply lines mechanic and an endless source of Helldivers we might just retain every planet our enemies attack, I don’t see it happening. At the time of writing, I’ve just watched four defense campaigns end, only two of which had hit 90% liberation when the timer reached 30 minutes left.

What players showed today is that supply lines don’t quite function as intended in Helldivers 2, so there’s every chance we might see another situation similar to the Martale gambit come up over the weekend that causes us to win on two fronts instead of losing ground and good Helldivers.