At last, democracy has come to Helldivers 2: A new Democracy Space Station lets players vote on which planet gets bombarded for truth and justice every 24 hours

Helldivers 2 already had democracy in spirit (my democracy officer, who is definitely not standing over my shoulder with a gun, tells me this) but now it has democracy in practice. After a gauntlet of major orders, a feature so thoroughly anticipated that it encouraged players to form the Freedom Alliance, the Democracy Space Station (DSS) has been deployed.

This thing is actually way more than just some flavour text for your next major order—it’s a whole new game mechanic, and a great place for already kitted-out divers to spend their hard earned resources. Once every 24 hours, the divers of Super Earth can literally vote on a planet for the station to be redirected to.

Once there, certain actions—purchased with heaps of samples and requisitions—will bombard whatever imminently liberated planet the DSS is dispensing democracy over. Now, it’s not clear whether this aid will make missions easier or harder, but who cares. More explosions! Do you wanna live forever?!

While there’s not been much beyond a post to X (shared below) in terms of info, the official Helldivers 2 Discord does have a helpful bot, which I’m told is under no circumstances an Automaton, with the following key information: “The DSS will move once every 24 hours. The DSS will only move to a planet that the Helldivers have majority-voted for the DSS to move onto. Helldivers can only vote once per movement cycle, so use your vote wisely as you can not undo nor change your vote once you have voted.”

Breaking: At long last, the Democracy Space Station has been activated, ushering in a new era of Galactic Freedom.All Helldivers can now democratically direct this Weapon of Mass Liberation from the Galactic Map on their Super Destroyer. pic.twitter.com/zWozeMG24dNovember 14, 2024

The current actions which are, at the time of writing, just over a little halfway to being complete, are as follows:

Planetary Bombardment (Rare Samples): Fires periodic Orbital Barrages during missions, accelerates liberation campaigns.
Eagle Storm (Common Samples): The same as the planetary bombardment, except with eagle runs and a buff to defence campaigns.
Orbital Blockade (Requisitions): Stops defence campaigns occurring entirely, gives the Hellpod Space Optimisation booster to all divers.

Each of these actions has a maximum donation you can make, and will only be active underneath the planet that the station is currently hovering over.

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An assorted set of images displaying the new Democracy Space Station feature in Helldivers 2. — (Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

Honestly, this seems like a step in the right direction for Helldivers 2—while the galactic front has been a major plus for the game since its release, it’s also come under criticism for being a little, well, rigged. I’m not sure I agree entirely with that assessment, but I’m certain the almighty Joel has had to shift numbers behind the scenes every now and again. And you can’t deny that, while the map has shifted a ton over time, the back-and-forth does seem eternal.

This is a huge difference to Helldivers 1, which has galactic wars that usually last around a month, and either end in a total victory for Super Earth, or a sheepish and defeated government deciding ‘um, actually, this doesn’t count’ and sodding off to build another Super Earth somewhere else.

The DSS seems like a way for players to have a far more active say in how Helldivers 2’s front actually goes—but it’ll need to be part of a change in design philosophy to feel like anything other than an olive branch for the temporarily disenfranchised. At least we’ve got bayonets to tide us over.