‘They talk like we’re actually soldiers’

It took GantztheDemon 10 days to be able to play Helldivers 2 again. On Feb. 21, TikTok user AJGaming shared a video featuring Gantz killing them. The sequence went viral overnight, garnering 4.8 million views as of this writing. A subsection of the Helldivers 2 community, hung up on the politically charged satire theme of the online shooter, labeled the player as a “traitor” and began inciting others to shoot on sight. Alongside dozens of TikToks campaigning for a witch hunt, Gantz’s PlayStation account was temporarily banned after receiving hundreds of reports.

  • Chozo@kbin.social
    2·
    9 months ago

    As somebody in both communities, these people are outliers, by far. I’d say 95% of the randoms I play with in either game are decent folk who aren’t trying to ruin other people’s fun. Even if the random player is way too underleveled for the mission and picked 4 support weapon strategems not knowing what they are and keeps getting stuck in respawn loops, everybody has been friendly and helpful, because that’s the democratic way. Anybody who tries to make the lives of their fellow players miserable is a dirty traitor and will be court-martialed.