You're waking up to bad Galactic War news in Helldivers 2 because the bugs and bots don't sleep, says developer Arrowhead's CEO: 'It's a push and pull'

Two Helldivers share a tender moment in Helldivers 2, while Automatons ravage the landscape behind them with explosions.

(Image credit: Arrowhead Studios)

The galactic war in Helldivers 2 proceeds apace, and it sure is fun to watch, from memes about the creek to Veld-induced panic, there's a whole lot happening day by day. The current major order to keep Heeth and Angel's Venture safe is going well, but players are starting to notice something strange. They plug in the hours to defend Super Earth, but when they wake up the next morning, all that progress has gone down the drain. What gives?

Turns out, bugs and bots don't sleep, that's what gives—as noted by Arrowhead Games' CEO Johan Pilestedt on Twitter over the weekend. "I've seen many posts about a planet's liberation amount—at peak [Concurrent Users (CCU)] the community is able to liberate high amounts, but as soon as peak passes, the enemies manage to take the planet back."

A post that reads: &quot;I've seen many @helldivers2 posts about a planet's liberation amount - at peak CCU the community is able to liberate high amounts but as soon as peak passes, the enemies manages to take the planet back. Each planet is sized constantly (think HP regen), this means that at low CCU planets lose liberation %. It's a push and pull!&quot; — (Image credit: @Pilestedt on Twitter/X.)

He then goes on to explain that "each planet is sized constantly (think HP regen), this means that at low CCU planets lose liberation %. It's a push and pull!" I figure Pilestedt meant 'seized' here, because otherwise the sentence doesn't make sense. If 'sized' means proportionate scaling to the amount of Helldivers glassing a planet, these campaigns wouldn't suffer from a low CCU like he mentions.

So there you have it: There's not some sneaky DM knocking off hard-earned percentage numbers while you sleep. Rather, the perception of Joel-based meddling is more mirage than reality. That's not to say things have never been shuffled around, as in a separate tweet Pilestedt did confirm that they can send reinforcements to planets.

However, his response to a player on that thread seems insistent that numbers-tweaking is less to do with a capricious game master—rather, the game's unexpected player count has caused some early adjustments to the formula. In response to the idea of an "illusion of choice", he writes: "It's not true. It was just in the first segment we had to get the balance right for several times more players. Now the choices you make are the ones that will happen."

A post that reads: &quot;It's not true. It was just in the first segment we had to get the balance right for several times more players. Now the choices you make are the ones that will happen.&quot; — (Image credit: @Pilestedt on Twitter/X.)

If I have my timelines correct, Veld's "HP regen" swings seem to have occurred after the tweet was made (I watched it all go down in the afternoon GMT on February 29, while Pilestedt's reply was written in the morning of the same day).

However, Veld was also the first Major Order where everybody was funnelled into the same planet—it was a unique experiment. I wouldn't be surprised if that "getting the balance right" part had to happen a second time over.

I also want to point out that, while you probably won't be beating out that passive regen percentage in the off-peak hours, you're still slowing it down—keeping it in a good spot for your prime-time siblings to swoop in and finish the job, like loosening the lid on a galactic peanut butter jar, just with more explosions.

I figure community complaints are coming from players who would rather be heroically pushing bugs back, and are instead saddled with a graveyard shift of "controlled losing" for the crime of living in specific timezones, which is fair. Still, every little helps.

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.