by Matthew J Peters - Published 3 months ago

Helldivers 2: Intro Cutscene Mistake Discovered

Highlight

First spotted by Reddit user Old_Opposite5125, almost every rifle you can see in the game's intro cutscene is missing its magazine, meaning they're all unloaded.
We're about to ruin the Helldivers 2 opening cinematic for you, as it turns out a mistake has been hidden ever since the game's launch.
You could argue this was intentional, but Helldivers 2 head Johan Pilestedt has confirmed it was a mistake that somehow also slipped past people with military training.

Helldivers 2 has been available for players for over seven months, so you'd expect any cutscene errors to have been found by now. Even with extra checks from developer Arrowhead, a mistake slipped into the game's intro cutscene.

This error was first noticed by Reddit user Old_Opposite5125 (as reported by GamesRadar), who observed that almost all weapons used by soldiers in Helldivers 2's opening cinematic lack bullets. You can clearly see empty magazine slots in close-up shots of rifles, especially evident in the scene with the soldier giving a thumbs-up while his comrades take down a Terminid.

The developers of Helldivers 2 have confirmed that the mistake in the game's introductory cutscene was not intentional.

It's such a strange oversight that some might believe it was intentional, but Helldivers 2 head Johan Pilestedt confirmed it was a mistake after seeing Old_Opposite5125's post.

"I can't even... haha. This can not be unseen," says Pilestedt. "I don't know how many times we reviewed this intro, and no one caught it, even though we have several people with military training on the team. This is a mistake. That it's taken over 2 years for someone to point it out is crazy!"

Despite this, some fans have embraced the error as an intentional choice in their own interpretations. The intro cutscene is propaganda-like and deliberately inauthentic, making it plausible that a family would be killed for a promotional video, or an Illuminate trick to create division.