In Helldivers 2 you can use an Easter Egg to complete your missions faster. With a bit of luck, you might even be doing this already.
What kind of Easter Egg is this? In Helldivers 2, there is an Easter Egg that many players are already using regularly without knowing it. Those who use it speed up the completion of their mission.
The Easter Egg in question is saluting while raising the flag. Some loyal fighters for Over-Earth do this out of pure pride for the nation, but the animation is useful not just in role-playing, but also because it increases the speed at which you actually raise the flag.
This works for all missions where you have to raise a flag and is independent of the chosen difficulty level. However, the sheer number of enemies makes saluting at higher difficulties correspondingly challenging.
Why this mechanic works at all is explained by the chief of Helldivers 2.
This trailer is where it all started with Helldivers 2:
Chief of Helldivers 2 confirms the legend
What did the chief say? From the very beginning, many Helldivers have saluted while raising the flag in the spirit of role-playing. However, the idea that this is supposed to make the process faster was not always so, as Johan Pilestedt, the Chief Customer Officer of Arrowhead Game Studios, explained on Reddit.
Previously, Reddit user Sad-Needleworker-590 shared a video in which he salutes at the flag, even though fighting is going on around him. He titled his post with the words: “After I learned that a salute makes the flag rise faster, I have mostly done that.”
While other players claim this is just superstition, the chief himself then weighed in. Johan Pilestedt refuted the claims that it is just superstition on Reddit: “No, that’s true. Everyone in the studio has done it, so one of the programmers added it as an ‘Easter Egg.'”
How much faster does it go? It is difficult to determine the exact amount, and the chief of Helldivers 2 does not reveal it in his message either. According to user ShinCuCai on Reddit, the speed is said to increase by 15% for the first salute and 7.5% for each additional saluting soldier.
The fact that so many gamers role-play in a cooperative shooter is likely due to the setting that Helldivers 2 has fostered from the very beginning. So it’s no surprise that the loyal fans and soldiers of Over-Earth keep their game alive almost a year after the release. For all fans of the brand, the next “chapter” is now coming: Millions of players fought in Helldivers 2 on Steam and PS5, now it’s set to continue in theaters
