How to kill Vox Engines in Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 Vox Engine — (Image credit: Arrowhead)

If you've just dropped into the hellish battlefield of Cyberstan in Helldivers 2, you're likely already wondering how to kill a Vox Engine. These are the heaviest new Automaton enemy—a rolling arsenal of lasers, miniguns, and rocket barrages, and they're seemingly very tanky, at least to conventional explosives, orbitals and airstrikes.

Well, after getting far too close for comfort, I've found the best way to kill these behemoths—a secret weak spot, if you will. Below I'll explain where to find it so you can destroy these troublesome foes quickly, though you're probably not going to like what's involved. I certainly didn't.

What's the Vox Engine weakness in Helldivers 2?

Vox Engines are some of the tankiest automaton constructs in Helldivers 2, and it feels like they can take even more hits than a Factory Strider. Still, they do have a definite weakpoint—the glowing orange vents on their body. You can destroy these with medium pen weapons, but in-particular, you'll want to take out the vent underneath them between the tracks, and the two vents on the lower back of the Vox Engine.

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You'll notice once you do that a little compartment will spring open on the back, between the vents you destroyed. This is a weak spot, so chuck a couple of sticks of Thermite in here, or a grenade like you would when destroying a Fabricator. You can also apparently do this with the three glowing vents on the back of the Vox Engine's head, which opens another higher up compartment you can toss a grenade in. You can also just straight up chuck a couple of sticks of Thermite onto the vent under the Vox Engine, like I do in the video above, and that seems to damage them significantly also.

Obviously, getting underneath and between the tracks to take out that vent is a challenge, especially when they have a 360-degree firing arc with their side-mounted miniguns. I'd suggest taking a shield generator and using cover to get as close as you can before making the run in. You can also take out Vox Engines the old-fashioned way with overwhelming firepower. Think Orbital Lasers, Hellbombs (whether laser-guided or back-mounted), Anti-Tank Emplacements, or just a whole load of thermite grenades tossed all over it.

If you're struggling with Vox Engines in general, I'd suggest using the group shield generator Stratagem that we all have for the assault on Cyberstan. This will give you an easy way to set up a protected firing position against Vox Engines while shrugging off most of their fire for a duration. Since they are so tanky, if you're not going to crawl underneath one, teamwork and focusing them as a group will be key to taking them down.

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.

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