New Helldivers 2 Illuminate mission leaks, tasking players with stopping vile psychic rituals

A new Helldivers 2 leak has revealed models relating to the game’s mysterious third faction: The Illuminate. While there’s still no release date for the long-awaited psychic aliens, dataminers have uncovered models tied to objectives for Illuminate missions.

Currently, Helldivers 2 has two enemy factions to battle: Automatons and Terminids. While some players—ourselves included—would love to see missions combining bots and bugs, the arrival of The Illuminate is one of the exctiting updates fans are hoping for. Could the arrival of the Democracy Space Station signal the new threat?

The Illuminate found in Helldivers 2 files

A recent datamine by Helldivers 2 leaker IronS1ghts reveals a new objective tied to The Illuminate. New models added to the game in a recent update showcase new “Ritual Sites” where Illuminate summoners will attempt to bring ghouls to the map to aid them in combat.

The Illuminate Ritual will task players with interrupting the rituals and killing summoners. At the time of writing, the in-development version of the ritual will result in a “large earthquake” once its stopped, but this doesn’t appear to have any gameplay benefit or detriment.

In the files, two forms of rituals have been discovered for Helldivers 2. The basic ritual seems to take place around some sort of ornate stone table whereas another type of ritual takes place around a mysterious “hole” that some of us will undoubtedly swan dive into.

(Leak) Illuminate Ritual Objectives#Helldivers2

– Your goal is to locate and stop all illuminate rituals
– At these ritual sites, illuminate summoners will be actively performing a ritual. You must interrupt this ritual, and kill all summoners.
– Summoners will summon ghouls to… pic.twitter.com/nTLOjSuAWs

— IronS1ghts (@Iron_S1ghts) November 1, 2024

Bring on The Illuminate

While bots and bugs do play differently from each other in the current version of Arrowhead’s shooter, the leaks for The Illuminate tease a much different faction to play against. Just like in the original game, The Illuminate offer an entirely different play style to fight against.

Despite constant leaks for the new faction, there’s still no release date for The Illuminate in Arrowhead’s shooter. However, we hope that the new faction will release sometime before the end of the year. Then we’ll be focused on an eventual fourth faction. Warhammer-like heretics, maybe?

For more news on Helldivers 2, check out what crossover update Arrowhead wants to add to the game, or how players are using a WW1-era weapon to take out tanks in hilarious fashion.