Sweet Liberty: Helldivers 2 players finally solve game’s most iconic bug

A Helldivers 2 player has finally found the root cause of one of the game’s most annoying bugs (apart from the Bile Titan) that has plagued fans since launch—and it’s all to do with giving yourself a health boost.

For months, players have noticed their character will often just slow or stop sprinting for no apparent reason, leading to certain death against the bot or bug horde. Despite many patches addressing issues with Helldivers 2, this glitch managed to sneak under the radar; but maybe we’re now on the way to squashing it after players uncovered it’s reason—your teammate used a stim.

“Go into a game with a friend, injure yourself so you have like a quarter health, have your friend start to sprint, and then use a stim,” the player who uncovered the reasoning explained in a lengthy post shared on the Helldivers Reddit forum. It mainly delved into a rise in issues and reported bugs after every update.

Another player then shared a clip of the bug in action that seemed to confirm the theory, noting their movement slowed right down after a teammate used a stim.

“All this time I thought my keyboard was dying on me,” one surprised Helldivers 2 fan said, while other players mentioned they had even gone as far as buying or using other keyboards thinking it was a hardware issue. But while this long-running bug’s cause may finally be found, getting a solution in might just break something else in the process.

The original post’s author, who said they have worked in the games industry for over two decades, said they hadn’t seen a game break so constantly and in so many different ways each patch. “The sheer amount of times a patch has released only to have completely side adjacent areas to break is almost turning into a case study at this point.” While that isn’t the most hopefully of messages, the player did add that they hoped Arrowhead can find a fix soon, especially because the community’s patience is running thin.

With Arrowhead winding down for the summer break we may not see a fix soon, but at the very least we now know the issue—all thanks to the Helldivers community.