After Helldivers 2 cheaters undercut its latest Major Order by turning in millions of bug bits at once, Arrowhead canceled the whole thing with an in-universe justification: 'The ones submitting false samples have had their pet fish summarily executed'

In an in-game message to players today , Arrowhead Games has revealed that cheaters short circuited Helldivers 2's latest Major Order. The studio has given out its intended reward to all non-cheating players, and in typical Helldivers fashion, couched the whole thing in Super Earth-appropriate terms within the fiction.

"Super Earth High Command has detected a large batch of counterfeit samples within the delivery of the last Major Order," the message reads. "As is customary, Medals have been awarded to all Helldivers who honorably performed their duties, and the ones submitting false samples have had their pet fish summarily executed.

"Laboratories all across Super Earth space are attempting to filter out the false samples, but the expected scientific advances to combat the spread of the gloom have decreased significantly. As a result of this, worlds near the gloom have begun resettlement protocols."

The Major Order to collect millions of samples of Terminid matter was set to run for four days, with some players complaining of the difficulty of the assignment. After two thirds of the objectives were done and dusted within a few hours, though, it was clear that something was amiss. It's unclear exactly how this was achieved, but despite boasting anti-cheat software, there are plenty of hackers in the co-op Helldivers 2, some of whom even sell their services digging up unreleased vehicles , activating god mode, or just skipping the grind for other players. Unique5673 on the Helldivers subreddit points to known "sample duplication cheats" as a potential culprit.

Though Helldivers 2's anticheat was unable to prevent this situation, Arrowhead can presumably manually investigate the results of the Major Order and single out players who were clearly cheating. As for the game's ongoing story, while players received the Major Order's reward, things look like they'll proceed as if the Major Order had failed.

This disruption is in keeping with some of the more restive behavior we've seen from the Helldivers 2 player base in recent weeks: some even deliberately ignored a previous Major Order to protest a flamethrower getting nerfed, and the subreddit is rife with complaints (and some messages of admiration) about so-called "Chaosdivers." Whatever the legitimacy of their complaints, I appreciate how Arrowhead kept things moving forward without missing a beat on Helldivers 2's reactive, emergent storytelling. Now a moment of silence for all the fish that suffered because of this boondoggle.