Helldivers 2 Major Order Showdown: Menkent vs Aesir Pass — Where Your Effort Matters Most

Helldivers 2 just dropped a Major Order that actually matters: the community has to pick one planet to liberate, and whichever way we go decides what secrets we get next. It also quietly revives that long-parked Cyberstan terraforming storyline. No pressure.

'Fog or fire, pick your poison.'

The choice: Menkent or Aesir Pass

Both worlds are under Automaton control. Only one gets freed, and the other’s data gets scrubbed by the bots the moment we move. So yeah, it’s mutually exclusive intel.

• Menkent - An oven with objectives. The heat cranks up stamina drain and makes weapons overheat faster. On top of that, fire tornadoes rip across the map, so it’s an endurance run from start to extraction. If we take Menkent, we unlock intel tied to the keyword 'Vessel 00' — widely believed to be a rumored Automaton capital ship or colossal unit, something on the scale of Super Earth’s DSS (Democracy Space Station) and potentially in the same threat class as the Illuminate Overship. In other words: big, bad, and galaxy-level consequential if real.
• Aesir Pass (Hydra Sector) - A fogbound graveyard. Visibility is lightly reduced for everyone — you and the machines. This place used to host a major SEAF training facility; now it’s a flattened, gray wasteland dotted with those cheery parasitic violet flowers. Liberating Aesir Pass unlocks intel on the keyword 'Nucleus' — thought to be the Automatons’ central AI hub. Think a communication-and-control core for their hive mind, less a battleship and more their version of a Democracy Space Station-style brain stem.

About those rewards

There’s no planet-specific buff or stratagem payout yet because the warp link isn’t established. For now, the real prize is story intel that pushes the galactic war plot forward. The Order also teases unique rewards as this arc unfolds, but the immediate payoff is lore — and it’s not nothing.

Why this pick actually matters

Both outcomes feed the Automaton-Cyberstan terraforming thread, but we only get one data drop. Hit Menkent and we learn about Vessel 00. Hit Aesir Pass and we learn about Nucleus. The Automaton response is to wipe the other cache the moment we commit, so there’s no doing both later.

My read

Menkent sounds miserable to fight on, but Vessel 00 is the juicier lead. If there’s even a chance the bots are fielding a warship or megastructure that rivals an Overship — or mirrors Super Earth’s DSS in scale — I want eyes on that first. Aesir Pass and the Nucleus intel is still important, just less theatrical; it’s their brain, not their fist.

So, where are you dropping: heat stroke with tornadoes, or fog with flowers? Pick your battlefield — and your lore.