This Helldivers 2 player has notched 116 gun butt bash kills so far, and they won't stop until proper melee weapons arrive

While plenty of members of the huge gaggle of folks playing Helldivers 2 have been spending a lot of time lately desperately trying to work out which of its guns is the best, like nerds, there’s now at least one who's given up on that an launched a campaign of sorts to try and convince Arrowhead to add in proper melee weapons.

What are they doing, you ask? Well, amid the intense firefights over planets like Malevelon Creek, they’ve decided to start bonking as many enemies on the head in order to finish them off as is humanly possible. No, this isn’t unhinged behaviour, it’s an admirable sacrifice.

“I WON'T STOP TILL I'M GIVEN A MELEE WEAPON JOEL,” the player in question, who goes by the utterly terrifying username xXIns1d1ousXx, has calmly declared in a post on the game’s subreddit, which shows off their pretty impressive melee kill total. Yes, Helldivers 2 has a melee kills stat, but right now it pretty much only exists to cover deaths that occur as a result of you slapping an automaton or bug with the butt of your rifle or shotgun, since there are no proper melee weapons.

This player, whose gamer tag is the equally disconcerting PoopyDevourer, has somehow managed to rack up 116 of those kills as their level 26 Helldivers alter-ego so far. That’s pretty impressive, even if there’s a very good chance they’ve been using the same guns they’ve used to earn the rest of their 337 kills to soften up foes for a final bash, rather than inflicting all of their damage via up-close-and-personal bonk.

While this looks to be a solo endeavour right now, they’ve gotten plenty of support from fellow Helldivers players who’re keen to get their hands on some weapons that can dish out the kind of punishment you can only deliver by running up to a foe and swinging something at them. Some of these folks just want the saber that you could get in the first Helldivers game to be added into the sequel, while others are after something a bit..fresher.

From adapted versions of the chainsaws used by some automatons, to great big hammers, and even lightsaber-style laser weapons, the wishlist formed as part of the thread’s pretty expansive. They’ve even thought about how you might balance these weapons with Helldivers 2’s current meta, with the idea of melee weapons taking up a support weapon slot, but having a buff like high armour penetration to make up for it having been floated.

Personally, I think it’s worth it just so people can go full Braveheart when they’re dropped onto hostile planets. Who doesn’t love some screamy sword-waving to intimidate your enemies?

To me, that's how you take the roleplaying that's already rampant in the game to the next level.