The official Twitter account for Helldivers announced that the players' latest operation was a success, with the Super Earth Army wiping out all enemy factions. The automatons were cornered on a world with several forts a few days ago, and today they completely destroyed those forts.

"You did it, Helldivers," Arrowhead declared. 'The mission was a success! With the bots destroyed and the bugs contained, the galaxy is once again free."

This is an incredibly bold move for a live game, and even in the famously resilient and reactive "Helldivers 2," the wartime plot twists and surprise equipment upgrades are masterminded by a shadowy GM known only as Joel. Swift Disassembly began Friday, giving players a three-day time limit to complete enough missions on the bot-controlled planets of Maia, Durgen, and Tibit. Today, with the fall of Durgen, it seems certain that the bots have been destroyed.

As PCG staff writer Harvey Randall pointed out, the groundhog day loop of the first Helldivers, with the galactic war resuming on a monthly basis, may provide a hint of where to go next: Helldivers 2 While story management may mean a more thorough, more winding and surprising path, it is unlikely that this will be the last we see of the automaton. There is still a faction in Helldivers 1, the Illuminate, that is fully MIA, and they are bound to show up sooner or later.

But one thing is for sure: Helldivers 2's live storytelling was like nothing I've ever seen before; Destiny 2's rough "Season of the Worthy" was a boring season of meter-filling, plot-driving There were so few people willing to do the activities that Bungie had to increase the number of people to make it happen. On the other hand, "Helldivers 2" has real stakes and momentum, and a sense that things could always go either way.