After what was an undoubtedly stressful few weeks for Arrowhead Game Studios and the various controversies surrounding their highly successful 2024 release Helldivers 2, it probably comes as a relief to them that the latest news surrounding the cooperative democracy simulator is one a bit more down to Earth, for lack of a better term. As discovered by the Helldivers 2 Leak subreddit and reported by the videogamer it looks like we finally have a preview of what the third enemy faction of Helldivers 2 looks like, the Illuminates.

New Helldivers 2 leak gives us a close-up look at the Illuminate

New Enemy Type??

🔗:https://t.co/PcYqnSOGxr pic.twitter.com/Fv3cCuLDfx

— Helldivers 2 Media (@Helldiversmedia) May 13, 2024

For those unaware, Helldivers as a franchise has always had three enemy factions, not two. Contrasting the seemingly mindless savagery of the buglike Terminids and the cold and calculating nature of the cyborgs and the Automatons, the Illuminates were always a more civilized enemy faction, one with an obvious culture and civilization of its own and thus, potentially a dark reflection of a humanity without democracy.

As shown, the Illuminates in the leak wear clothes and have interesting designs. Historically, they’ve always been much more squishy than the bugs or the bots, which is a good thing for the game as one of the premier gripes many of the player base have with Helldivers 2 is that light armor penetration is basically a death sentence for a weapon. Now, with a more fragile target available it’s likely that light armor penetration will be very viable. Though watch out, Illuminates are far from helpless and have their own forms of technology as well as special abilities like psionics to bolster their power and make them threatening in their own unique way from the other two factions.

Leaks for Helldivers 2 seem to be chugging along, and the game has stabilized in terms of news since the PSN debacle weeks ago. It’s a good sign for the health of the game that the community has moved forward from that, and it’s exciting to see how the game handles an entirely new faction.