4/1/2024: It looks like Super Earth celebrated too soon. Reports of massive, cloaked gunships in the skies of Automaton planets are appearing online. I’ve seen them for myself. Liberty help us all. 4/2/2024: They’re here, and it’s even worse than we imagined. Gigantic AT-AT walkers and swarming gunships have arrived on Automaton planets.

Victory is ours… already? Just hours after Super Earth initiated a major order to finally, once and for all, liberate community-favorite planet Malevalon Creek, Helldivers 2 players have delivered. Our greatest defeat can now be celebrated as one of our greatest achievements. The news became official with an in-game dispatch, as well as a rare Twitter announcement from the official Helldivers 2 account.

“As of approximately two hours ago, major combat operations in Malevelon Creek have ended,” the post reads. “In the battle of Malevelon Creek, we are proud to announce, Super Earth and our allies have prevailed. April 1st will forever be a day of victory and remembrance. Hold the line, Helldivers!”

Accompanying the message is a piece of art depicting the battle of Malevelon Creek, adorned with a rallying cry: “Remember the Creek.”

It’s a good day to be a helldiver, even if the community managed to liberate Malevelon so fast that I didn’t have time to help. But the timing of the major order sure was peculiar, right? I’d love to believe there are no strings attached to this accomplishment, but I’m not taking anything at face value on April Fools day.

A holiday dedicated to playful lying sounds like Christmas for Arrowhead—a studio that recently gaslit its players into spreading a toxic pesticide that created a new type of flying bug, then denied that flying bugs exist. Is game master Joel using the liberation of Malevelon Creek as a springboard for a larger military action? Maybe a surprise intervention by the Automatons’ new gunships is imminent.

For now, a new major order has immediately replaced the old one: Hold Malevelon Creek (100%), Draupnir (100%), and Ubanea (15% at publishing time).

“The Automatons, clearly having calculated their impending shutdown, have launched a counterattack,” the order reads. “Desperate as it is, should this re-invasion succeed, Operation Swift Disassembly could be jeopardized. Hold your ground.”

The order is set to expire on April 4.