The 'Helldivers 2' annual report is in, and you have a lot of friendly fire to explain

Helldivers 2 screenshot showing an armoured man kneeling and giving a thumbs up, while two other armoured men kick an alien bug.
(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios / Sony)

Another glorious year in the corps! The bug-crushing, bot-smashing, democracy-delivering co-op shooter Helldivers 2 celebrated its 2nd birthday back in February, and now developers Arrowhead Game Studios have revealed the stats on our efforts to deliver freedom across the galaxy over the past 365 days.

The team dropped this enlightening infographic on X, and it's packed with fun stats and big numbers. 279,991,000,000 enemies — or threats to democracy — vanquished, to use Super Earth's official parlance; that's a number so big I had to Google how to say it (it's two hundred seventy-nine billion nine hundred ninety-one million).

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios / Sony)

There are some other fun stats in there, including a ranking of the game's most popular stratagems. Not counting reinforce and resupply, because those are boring, the top three most used stratagems were the Eagle 500KG Bomb, the Machine Gun Sentry, and the Gatling Sentry. Not bad choices, but I'm outraged that my beloved Orbital 380MM HE Barrage didn't even make the top 10.

And finally — yes, we know what you're all here for — it's the friendly fire stats. There were 177 million incidents of friendly fire over the past year, and absolutely none of that came from my love of the aforementioned 380mm barrage. Nope, no siree.

In truth, I'm in the clear because the top three offenders for friendly fire were the Eagle Strafing Run (no surprise there, that blasted Eagle Storm modifier is always the death of me), the B-100 Portable Hellbomb (oh you strapped a rip-cord nuke to someone's back and you're shocked they died?), and AX/ARC-3 K9 (he's trying his best).

Despite being two years old, Helldivers 2 continues to be one of the best space games out there, offering chaotic co-op third-person shooter action, gorgeous visuals, and a heavy undercurrent of satire. If you're interested in joining the fight for Super Earth, it's available now for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. I promise you probably won't get hit by a 380MM barrage.

Ian Stokes
Entertainment Editor

Ian is the Entertainment Editor at Space.com, covering movies, TV series, and games in the space and sci-fi realms. He's a massive sci-fi nerd and has been writing about games and entertainment for over eight years, with articles on sites like Space, LiveScience, GamesRadar, and more. With a degree in biology, a PhD in chemistry, and his previous role at the Institute of Physics Publishing, Ian is taking a world tour through the different scientific disciplines.

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