Surviving Extreme Helldivers 2: How to Handle the Nuke, Sandworms, and Hive Lords in Helldivers 2

After a new Helldivers 2 update, players are discovering that developers Arrowhead have sneakily added a massive and nearly impossible-to-kill super worm, known as the Hive Lord, to the online sci-fi shooter. But one team has felled the beast, though it reportedly took nearly a dozen nukes.

On September 2, PlayStation and Arrowhead pushed out a new, free Helldivers 2 update known as “Into The Unjust.” This big update, available now on PS5, Xbox, and PC, added intricate caves to explore, new missions to complete, and a little surprise. Well, more of a big surprise. The Hive Lord, a bug the size of a skyscraper, is now an enemy you might encounter in Helldivers 2.

 

While the Hive Lords appeared in the first Helldivers, they hadn’t yet shown up in the sequel. Hive Lords were hinted at in the update’s trailer and have been teased in-game since launch. But Arrowhead didn’t officially list the new massive enemy in the game’s patch notes, so some players discovered the Hive Lords completely by chance and were shocked by their scale. These things are big. Huge. Easily the largest enemy in Helldivers 2. And they are very hard to kill.

At first, players weren’t even sure Hive Lords could be killed, with some reporting the beasts had survived tactical nukes and many, many bullets. But players spotted that sometimes a bullet would penetrate the beast’s armor and that it did react to explosions. “If it bleeds, it can be killed” became a rallying call under some posts of Hive Lords laying waste to players and vehicles. Even still, some weren’t sure. Maybe it was too much for the forces of democracy to handle.

Eventually, one squad of brave and dedicated Helldivers killed a Hive Lord, likely becoming one of the first teams, if not the first team, to do so. According to one of the people involved with killing the massive sand worm, it took 10+ Hellbombs, 8+ 500KG bombs, and “a ton of Ultimatums and Spears/RRs.” According to IsJustSophie, one of the Hive Lord slayers, “I shat my pants when it burst out of the ground.” Seems like a totally fair and reasonable reaction to encountering a massive god worm.