Summary
The Helldivers 2 community faces internal threats from players violating unwritten co-op rules like teamkilling, prompting vigilante justice.
GantzTheDemon has become villified for alleged teamkilling in Helldivers 2, sparking community backlash and attempts for retribution.
The lack of an official reporting system for griefing has given rise to a culture of naming and shaming, but social media channels are pushing back.
The biggest threat to democracy in Helldivers 2 isn’t bugs or Automatons – sometimes, it’s other players. Despite being a relatively new game, Helldivers 2 has already developed a devoted community. That largely stems from its co-op gameplay, which encourages, if not requires, concentrated teamwork. It’s not always perfect – selfishness isn’t unheard of in Helldivers 2. Still, players soldier on, working to get more players invested in the effort to spread democracy through the universe.
But some players take selfishness to a whole new level. There are unwritten rules for Helldivers 2 co-op, and some go out of their way to violate them. Flukes and misunderstandings happen: occasionally leaving an Operation early is understandable, but repeated trolling and griefing is unforgivable. There’s little recourse for victims of this kind of malevolence, but the Helldivers 2 community has come up with a temporary solution. Here’s why players are turning to vigilante justice.
Related Helldivers 2 Player Shares Their Incredible Solution for Calling in Complicated Stratagems A dedicated Helldivers 2 fan takes their game to the next level by using a smart system to eliminate all those complicated Stratagem inputs.
Helldivers 2 Players Have United Against GantzTheDemon
Helldivers 2’s Teamkilling Problem Explained
A since-deleted Reddit post by user Indublibable called out a player named GantzTheDemon for intentional teamkilling, and players have since united in an effort to avenge their fallen teammates. This kind of behavior is totally antithetical to Helldivers 2’s message of democracy and unity, even if it is satirical like Starship Troopers. If nothing else, it just seems like bad form to kill one’s own teammates in a co-op game that encourages working together. And it would appear the Helldivers 2 community agrees.
Gantz has since become a public enemy to the Helldivers community. The comments are full of players voicing their support, claiming to have seen similar behavior. Some players have even placed a bounty on Gantz’s head. Of course, killing Gantz would only be a temporary solution – they’d experience a taste of their own alleged medicine, but eventually join another lobby and be free to continue teamkilling if they so desired. What the callout post actually becomes, then, is a PSA. It’s a warning to players who may encounter Gantz: kick them or kill them before they can do the same.
Helldivers 2 doesn’t make it easy to report players for infractions, as its report system is focused on offensive messages in text chat. Players have little official recourse if they’re wronged by their teammates in other ways, such as voice chat, match throwing, or teamkilling. So, many have turned to the online community in response to perceived slights. There’s always the option to block another player, but that doesn’t prevent serial griefers from doing the same in other lobbies. Callout posts became common in the earliest days of Helldivers 2’s release, with many naming and shaming specific players.
There are pros and cons to this approach to crowdsourced moderation. While it can help innocent players avoid a lot of grief, there’s also no way to verify claims of teamkilling without video proof. Those naming and shaming could have misinterpreted a friendly fire incident, or even be trolling themselves. For their part, the mods of the Helldivers Subreddit have taken a stand against it. “No naming and shaming” is codified into its official rules, and posts engaging in it – like the initial callout of GantzTheDemon – are promptly removed.
Related One Goofy Helldivers 2 Trick Makes A Boring Mission Go By Much Faster Not every objective in Helldivers 2 is exactly exciting, but there’s no need to accept the slower pace of certain tasks when a basic trick will do.
Helldivers 2: GantzTheDemon Responds
Custom Image by Katarina Cimbaljevic
A player claiming to be GantzTheDemon has responded to teamkilling accusations on TikTok – and if the video is accurate, the situation may not be as clear-cut as it seems. This video shows another player being shot by a teammate, which the TikTok user claims, in comments, happened prior to Gantz’s teamkilling incident. In their version of the story, Gantz is the victim: another teammate murdered their friend, and they turned on the original killer by way of revenge.
Of course, this account also needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It’s no more possible to verify that this side of the story is true than it is to verify the original Reddit post. This could be a separate teamkilling incident, perhaps even one undertaken in an effort to claim the bounty on Gantz’s head. Or it could be another person masquerading as Gantz in order to drum up sympathy. Still, it appears there are many facets to Gantz’s story, which is difficult to condense into a single Reddit post.
So, what’s the moral of the story? For one thing, Helldivers 2 players have demonstrated time and time again their willingness to unite for a common cause. That’s admirable in any online game, but it seems the uniquely collaborative nature of this one brings players together in uncommon ways. However, that’s not always a positive thing. Some things will always slip through the cracks when an online community relies on vigilantism, especially when it’s based on unconfirmed accounts. What Helldivers 2 really needs is a better system of penalties for teamkilling, to cut the problem off at the source.
Sources: Indublibable/Reddit, GantzTheDemon/TikTok
Helldivers 2
Helldivers II is the follow-up to the 2015 multiplayer top-down single-player/co-op shooter from Arrowhead Game Studios. The sequel, which has shifted gears to a third-person shooter format, drops players into the boots of elite super-soldiers who fight to protect Super Earth from invading alien forces while taking the fight to those who threaten the “democracy of Super Earth.”
Franchise Helldivers
Released February 8, 2024
Developer(s) Arrowhead Game Studios AB
Publisher(s) PlayStation Studios
ESRB M