The Helldivers 2 community has been through a lot lately, with everything from failed Major Orders to Sony’s aborted attempt to force PC players to link their accounts to PSN to contend with. Now, the community’s attention has shifted onto a player who has unwittingly become the focus of an altogether more wholesome story.

The story starts with a seemingly innocuous player interaction that went viral. A Helldiver called Dremskiy joined a group only to face being kicked from it.

“Sorry… I have to kick you,” Dremskiy was told by another Helldiver who said they were playing with friends only.

“im frend,” was Dremskiy’s heartbreaking reply.

“Don’t make this more difficult…” the player said.

Like a Helldiver ragdoll butting heads with a Charger, that interaction flew off, enjoying millions of views across social media, Discord, and forums before inevitably becoming a meme. “im frend”, complete with misspelling, is now part of Helldivers lore.

Image credit: Helldivers subreddit.
Image credit: Helldivers subreddit.

Image credit: Helldivers subreddit.
Image credit: Helldivers subreddit.

Image credit: Helldivers subreddit.
Image credit: Helldivers subreddit.

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead and Sony then had their say, reinforcing and promoting the meme. “For prosperity. For liberty. For democracy. For frend,” Arrowhead tweeted. “im frend 😢” the PlayStation UK X/Twitter account replied, while still failing to address the fact Helldivers 2 remains delisted in over 100 countries because of its PSN account policy.

Now, Helldivers players are reporting brief interactions with Dremskiy, who seems bemused by all the attention. Apparently they’re just happy everyone’s happy, which is lovely.

And Dremskiy should now have plenty of frends to play Helldivers 2 with — the community reports their friends list is now full following all the attention. Dremskiy is now streaming Helldivers 2 on Twitch. “Hello frend,” people in chat are saying as they log in to watch. While streaming, Dremskiy called the tweets from the official Helldivers account “crazy.” “I didn’t even find out until yesterday I was a meme,” Dremskiy went on to say. “I don’t know how I feel about it. I appreciate it. It made me genuinely happy.” Dremskiy later confirmed they had accepted 200 friend requests yesterday and a few more today, and now Steam says the list is full.

Helldivers 2 is PlayStation’s fastest-selling video game of all time, with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks. It’s an astonishing result for Sony and Arrowhead, but Helldivers 2 has certainly had its ups and downs since the explosive launch across PC and PlayStation 5 in February. Perhaps Dremskiy’s story marks a turning point.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].



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