Helldivers 2 has its own fan-made Super Earth Broadcast
One of the strengths of Helldivers 2 is the shared sense of purpose. Each time a squad successfully completes a mission on a planet, the liberation rate increases. While progress towards this common goal is tracked in real time, you can only see it in-game. The Super Earth broadcast, a TikTok account with 300,000 followers, has been providing a bridge to the outside world since February 15, allowing players to stay up to date on Galactic War news even when they are off duty.
“Mort has just been attacked by the Automatons, all available Helldivers are asked to defend the planet,” the latter says Emergency warning. There are a total of 35 videos at the time of publication, combining news about the game’s server issues, combat tips, notable armor sets in the Superstore, and in-lore announcements about the liberation.
Finnegan, the only person behind the account, decided to create a simple TikTok after he couldn’t find a quick way to get updates about Hell divers 2. This quick effort went viral overnight, with 937,000 views to date.
“I don’t really prepare a script,” he told Polygon via Discord. “I look at the galactic map and see what the current situation is, and what I imagine will happen next, based on previous campaigns. All the clips I use are my own.”
Finnegan generally spends a few hours a day on the account and has over 200 hours of playtime. He currently does not have a day job, but cares for his grandfather full-time. The Super Earth Broadcast routine usually involves jumping into the game, checking the map, picking up clips, and starting to work on the next update.
Some people message Finnegan in case he misses something or can’t log in, although he said he was able to access the servers quite easily even during peak server capacity. Once he has all the information he needs, he uses generative AI to create his voice clips. “All votes are randomly generated, I just chose the ones I liked. “I have no plans at this time to have anyone else help,” he said.
Because the popularity of Hell divers 2 continues to grow, just like the concept of the Super Earth Broadcast. When I spoke to Finnegan on Friday evening, he said he didn’t expect to gain more than 200,000 followers in just a week. Another 100,000 were added last weekend alone.
Finnegan expressed uncertainty about next steps after being thrust into this sudden spotlight. In the last few days he made one website to share in-lore news in written form with the help of volunteer writers from his Discord server, which currently has over 2,500 users.
He also streams on TikTok, but he’s thinking about moving to Twitch instead as the inner workings of the platform remain a mystery. “The algorithm is constantly changing,” Finnegan said. “You never really know what will change when that happens. Sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes it doesn’t. Like for example in the last few days my views have dropped. But now I’m back where I was.”
Like developer Arrowhead’s behemoth, Super Earth Broadcast continues to gather new fans. While it’s unclear what’s in store for the future, Finnegan is determined to keep breaking news no matter how long the phenomenon will persist around the world. Hell divers 2 takes.
“I’m not worried about the popularity of the game or my channel,” he said. “The community from the first game was very engaged and committed to it. The same can be said about the new community. Either way, there will always be helldivers hanging around that need updates.”