Helldivers 2 player yeets a big bug straight through an even bigger bug like an atomic baseball—'Ever seen a Charger Stratagem? Now you have'

A giant bile titan, a towering insect from Helldivers 2, lets out a vicious scream as it stomps over the landscape. — (Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

At the heart of Helldivers 2's intense combat are a few key skills. The overwhelming nature of the forces against you means prioritising targets is as important as good aim. You've got to balance the enormous power of stratagems with limited uses, always wary of the nightmares that lie just over the next ridge. Sometimes you don't balance jack, and you've got to improvise with whatever's in your hands.

Helldiver WolfBrinkTV has managed to exemplify all of these aspects in a beautiful clip that showcases both the game's slightly janky physics and the emergent opportunities they create. The moment ends up so cinematic that it deserves all the medals Super Earth has to offer, and then some.

The clip was posted with the title "Ever seen a Charger Stratagem? Now you have." It shows WolfBrinkTV and their squad battling against a huge bug army, the centrepiece of which is a Bile Titan spewing away (this is the biggest and most powerful bug). The player's focused on this with their Quasar Cannon, a weapon that needs to be primed before firing one powerful shot, when a Charger turns up on the scene and makes a beeline for them.

WolfBrinkTV, cool as a cucumber, swivels their position while the Quasar shot charges, aims at the Charger, and the shot hammers into the bug's leg joint. The impact of the hit somehow flings the giant bug carcass into the sky—directly at, and then through, the face of the Bile Titan.

Ever seen a Charger Stratagem? Now you have. from r/Helldivers

"The fact that this stuff is possible creates endless opportunities," said WolfbrinkTV. "Getting the Charger to Ragdoll is the only thing I don't think you can make happen at will."

As WolfBrinkTV alludes to here, the physics engine in Helldivers 2 can be an ornery old thing. Most who've played the game will have come across some odd scenery moments, where a slight outcrop suddenly sends your Helldiver sprawling, not to mention how ridiculous things can get when you're being meleed.

The latter happens a lot with the Chargers, which can and should launch you across the map with a suitable impact, but can also clip over your character model and create little hell vortices that end up jiggling you about then launching you out of their body at a rate of knots.

I'm not complaining about this stuff, because it's the same slightly janky physics underpinning the launch of this Charger into its boss. But it does mean that, while this is a possibility showcased to perfection here, your chances of recreating it are probably fairly low. Or in the words of the Helldiver who executed the strat this was simply "a once in a dive-time opportunity!"

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."