Helldivers 2 devs have donated to charity thanks to player choices

Posted on June 17, 2024

It’s not every day that you see your actions in a video game reflected in the real world. But for Helldivers 2 players, this was the case. Arrowhead Games announced that they’ve donated money to Save The Children due to the community’s in-game decision to… save the children.

For context, Helldivers 2 released two major orders for players to achieve back on June 12, 2024, and had a few days to complete these tasks. One of them is to liberate Vernen Wells, by saving trapped children in a hospital. The other was to liberate Marfark, where they had the chance to get anti-tank mines. Unfortunately, players didn’t have enough time to do all of the major orders that were given and many of them chose to save the children, despite knowing there was no material benefit. Due to the players’ choices, Arrowhead’s CCO and Helldivers 2′ creative director, Johan Pilestedt, has announced he donated $4,311 USD (~ $6525 AUD) to Save the Children.

Arrowhead’s announcement led to some players following suit as a handful have declared that they too have donated money after the company’s announcement on social media. Meanwhile, other players wonder what if the opposite happened and players went towards the mines. Pilestedt replied to this player’s query with a vague and somewhat scary response.

Helldivers 2 isn’t the only video game where player action affects the real world. Disney’s Club Penguin held an annual charity event called Coins For Change, where players used their virtual coins to vote on how the video game company should divide their donations. This event ran every year from 2007 to 2014. Meanwhile, content creators have done subathons and charity livestreams to raise funds for a variety of groups, including St. Jude and Extra Life.

The Helldivers community has been known to band together to fight for what’s right. Back in April, players advocated for PlayStation and Arrowhead to not implement forced PSN and Steam integration as it meant that many players in 177 territories would be locked out from the game due to regional issues. They’ve done this by review-bombing the game on its official Steam page, which has since then been fixed and retained its “mostly positive” review status.

As of writing, new Major Orders have been released in Helldivers 2 and it’s currently unknown if Arrowhead plans to do another surprise charity event. For now, players should be proud that their actions were only one step closer to liberating Super Earth, whilst positively impacting the real-world as well.