Helldivers 2 players want friendly fire to stay on

Helldivers 2 has become the breakout game of 2024, with over eight million sales in less than two months, and it regularly sees over 200,000 concurrent players on Steam due to its regular updates from Arrowhead Game Studios. Its most recent update saw many much-needed fixes implemented, including fixing an issue that caused players to destroy their exosuits while in them accidentally. Unfortunately, the latest 1.000.103 update also caused its share of problems, such as the Galactic War progress no longer tracking. It isn’t ideal when players are supposed to be liberating planets as part of the current Major Orders community event.

One feature of Helldivers 2 is that friendly fire is turned on and can’t be switched off. Friendly fire means that players can eliminate their teammates which adds an element of strategy to the game, as well as realism. Players need to be careful to ensure that some start bullets or explosions don’t take down their partners as they’re fighting hordes of Terminids. Of course, in true gamer fashion, this mechanic is often abused to troll each other with players killing each other to prevent them from completing missions. You would think this would make players hate the mechanic and beg for Arrowhead Game Studios to turn it off, but the opposite is true, players are demanding that it be left on.

Helldivers 2 players have taken to Reddit to discuss how much fun the friendly fire mechanic is and how they hope it remains part of the game going forward. U/Equivalent_Truck_706 hopes to see the mechanic kept in the gaming calling it “absolutely wonderful,” while u/redmerger said it is “a defining factor of the game!” It seems that almost every player universally agrees that it keeps the game interesting, as well as being the source for many funny moments, such as the one shared by u/FeloniousFlatus who said “Watching a person with a jump pack ragdoll through the air because of my grenade will never not be funny.” Friendly fire does add another layer to the mechanics and strategy of Helldivers 2, with u/Infinityplus8008 comparing removing it to what happened with Anthem when EA implemented auto-revive, which took an element of strategy and planning out of the game, which “instantly made multiplayer boring and braindead.” Hopefully, this is a sign to Arrowhead Game Studios that the mechanic should remain in the game indefinitely.

Even though the Terminid isn’t the only threat you have to be aware of, as your teammates can stab you in the back at a moment’s notice, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go into missions unprepared. Whether you’re a new player just getting started, or a more experienced soldier, we highly recommend that you check out our Helldivers 2 best weapons guide and our best armor guide so you can create the ideal load out to help you liberate planets of the Terminid and protect Super-Earth.