Helldivers 2’s New CEO Wants to Keep the Game’s Best Bug Yet

Helldivers 2 players have discovered a quite fantastic bug that prevents them from taking fall damage — and the new CEO of developer Arrowhead wants it to stay.

As surfaced by redditor Chunke-Funke-Monke, Helldivers 2 emoting actually reduces fall damage. It’s true: perform an emote while you’re falling from a height you'd typically die from and you'll reduce the damage you’d normally take and survive.

Why does this happen? The theory is that Helldivers 2 applies its physics model to fall damage as it does across the game. That is, the game works out which part of your body you’ve landed on and determines damage accordingly. It makes sense! A bang on the head is probably going to be fatal, but you might survive a bang on your butt… just.

Helldivers 2 doesn’t let you change your orientation as you fall through the air, but if you emote while doing so you force your character model to reposition into the emote pose, thus changing the part of you that hits the ground first. Genius!

This is genuinly useful in a game packed with explosions that often send your Helldiver hurtling across the map. And so, Helldivers 2 has a new meta: using emotes to prevent fall damage. Now that’s a twist Super Earth didn’t see coming.

You’d think Arrowhead would want to patch this one out (I doubt it’s intended gameplay), but new CEO Shams Jorjani, who recently replaced previous Arrowhead CEO and current chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt, tweeted to call for it to stay.

can we please, please keep this? @ArrowheadGS https://t.co/a57PMZ4JtT— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) July 8, 2024

While emote free-falling is meme worthy now, what might be better for Helldivers 2 long-term is a more realistic mechanic that lets players reduce fall damage in-universe. Perhaps there’s certain armor that would help, or gear that gives you a parachute or something similar. Yet another mechanic to potentially add to Arrowhead’s long list of upcoming Helldivers 2 content.

we'll add inflatable bouncy bags that deploy from under your arm pits or some shit if we have to. c'mon! we have the technology - where there's a will there's a way!— Shams Jorjani (@ShamsJorjani) July 8, 2024

This isn't the first time Helldivers 2 players have discovered unintended emote gameplay. Soon after the PC and PlayStation 5 co-op shooter came out earlier this year, players discovered that if one Helldiver used the shield generator pack to protect from sustaining damage from explosives, they could hug emote another player to share the shield. Wholesome!

Helldivers 2 is the fastest-selling PlayStation game of all time, having shifted an incredible 12 million copies in just 12 weeks. Amid the huge revenue Helldivers 2 has generated, Arrowhead itself has suffered a number of crises, including launch server problems and a battle with Sony itself over the console maker’s controversial attempt to force Steam players to account link to PlayStation Network.

Arrowhead recently revealed it was in the process of setting the studio up so it could “make more and better stuff” in the long-term. In an introductory post on reddit, Jorjani said the studio has had to adjust to the enormous success Helldivers 2 has brought to the company.

Image credit: reddit / Chunke-Funke-Monke.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.