Helldivers 2 takes a page from George W. Bush, rebrands its military operations as the 'Galactic War on Tyranny' to drum up new recruits

It's been a stagnant few weeks for Helldivers 2's galactic war. Super Earth has been on a streak of Ls as of late, with several failed major orders to secure planets with malfunctioning Terminid Control Systems and, more recently, a failed order that came with material consequences: We fell short of scrapping two billion Automatons in a week, and lost our second opportunity to unlock the Anti-Tank Mines stratagem.

In an effort to drum up enthusiasm for its anti-bug and anti-robot campaigns among the Federation, the Super Earth government has issued an important update:

"The Automatons have invaded large swaths of our territory. The TCS has failed, and the Meridian Supercolony spews ever-larger quantities of Terminids across the galaxy. Liberty is under greater threat than ever before. In response to this situation, the Government of Super Earth has officially declared war on all agents of Tyranny," the in-game message reads.

"All actions thus far have merely been special military operations. This Galactic War on Tyranny will not end until Liberty is safe forever, once again."

This confused me, because I was under the impression we were already at war with "tyranny" as well as its allies, oppression and totalitarianism. Apparently, everything we've done so far has been a precursor to the real war that begins today. In everything but name, this is the same war it was yesterday. The "Galactic War on Tyranny"... yeah, it's not hard to pick up on the inspiration behind Helldivers 2's latest warmongering roleplay. This is the first time I've read a Super Earth communique and immediately wanted to go to bed.

The rebranding is having the intended effect on the Super Earth public. "Billions of able-bodied citizens from across the Federation have already volunteered for conscription," the message continues.

And that's where we divers come in: Our next major order is to hold key planets, four to start, where construction of new training facilities has begun. At the time of writing, three of the four planets are in safe hands and one has an active defense campaign.

It seems like a simple task—much more manageable than the coordinated capture of planets on two different fronts—but it will take an amount of focus to not let Super Earth-controlled planets slip away. If Arrowhead wants to direct more attention toward a particular planet, it could always claim that the Automatons have weapons of mass destruction.