Over 350,000 players land on a single Helldivers 2 planet as Super Earth conquers the Automatons

It took a mighty effort from Super Earth’s finest, but Helldivers 2 players have all but eradicated Automatons following the Major Order victory and liberation of Durgen today.

Super Earth forces conquered the Severin sector with the win and, in the process, ended the Automaton front. If you’re not an active Helldivers 2 player you probably have no clue what any of that means, so we’ll put it another way. A remarkable 361,852 players dropped onto a single planet over a few hours to see off one of the major Helldivers species, the Automatons. Servers were pushed to their limits but in doing so, Helldivers 2 concurrents reached their highest in over a month, according to Steam tracking page SteamDB.

The battle, which had been titled “Operation Swift Disassembly,” ended in the early hours of April 7 and saw all planets at the Automaton front liberated. “The socialist Automatons have been purged from their last, desperate footholds within our galaxy,” Arrowhead community manager Spitz said on the Helldivers 2 Discord server. There were worries that, with the growing number of players affected by crashes, the Major Order would fail—but players braved the threat of tech problems to take on the bots and win.

Many took to celebrating the win across social media and turning their attention to the Terminids, who have slowly begun rebuilding and pushing back on the east side of the galaxy. The next Major Order focuses on the Mirin and Draco sectors at the Terminid front where players have been ordered to clear out the only remaining species in the Galactic War.

Some players aren’t convinced the Automaton threat is over yet and that game master Joel and his team are already making plans for the bots to swiftly return. “I’m 100 percent sure that nothing bad will happen and everything will be completely fine,” one player said sarcastically, with many more keeping their Automaton loadouts on standby.

Others feel the game’s rumored third faction, the Illuminate, is planning to invade the galaxy with the return of the Automatons. We’ve heard nothing concrete on that front yet, but given the next Warbond is coming on April 11, it seems like the perfect time for either an Automaton uprising or something completely new to attack.

We’ll see what brainiac Joel and the Helldivers 2 team have in store for players later this week, but for now, get out there and squash more bugs Helldiver.