For Heart of Democracy, the Expansion where the Helldivers home planet of Super Earth is under attack by the Illuminate - we wanted to build up until the moment where the attack actually happens.
It all started long before. In a previous chapter of Helldivers 2, a planet called Meridia had been turned into a Singularity. Something that was claimed by Super Earth to be completely safe. In reality it was a wormhole, waiting to unleash horrors beyond our comprehension. The wormhole moved closer towards Super Earth but somehow we managed to stop it. And with that, all illuminate disappeared.
Illuminate dissappearance
The marketing campaign started off by calling for citizens to attend a music festival held on a planet adjacent to the Singularity dubbed the Singularity Party taking place on May 13
Singularity Party Poster
The week leading up to May 13, we introduced a separate account on X called Major Truth. We wanted this account to grow naturally and not immediately confirm that we were behind it. Therefore we didn't market it in any way except for telling a select few influencers to check out the mysterious account we found.
Major Truth's Account
Major Truth was our take on a conspiracy nut. He used to be a Janitor working on Helldivers' ships, but he saw himself as a very important person. We wanted him to seem crazy, starting off with nonsensical ramblings and bizarre pictures until he actually started to report on some truths.
Just some of Major Truth's ramblings
The first real piece of evidence we planted to get the community speculating was a video taken on Super Earth itself. At this point we had never shown what Super Earth looked like, so it was a tease of what the planet the players would soon be fighting on looked like, and it teased the existence of illuminate presence on the planet.
Major Truth's UFO video
The next video we posted was a spectrograph of sounds emanating from the Singularity that Major Truth had gotten his hands on. Hidden within this audio was a voiceline from one of the new enemies that would soon be appearing from the singularity.
Spectograph Video
The last thing we posted on the Major Truth account before May 13 (the day of the Singularity Party) was taken from a "live feed" of a colony on Widow's Harbor - the planet where the event would take place. Teasing one of the new enemies that would be coming. This all but confirmed that we were behind the account and that something new was soon dropping.
Major Truth's smoking gun
On May 13th the illuminate returned - out of the Singularity and attacked Widow's Harbor. With this fleet came new enemy types and they were heading towards Super Earth. Major Truth was right. Despite this Super Earth insisted that this would be easily handled by the Helldivers.
Part of my role at Arrowhead Game Studios was as a creative lead for the marketing & social media campaigns.
I worked closely together with our social media manager, community team and development team to make sure we crafted cohesive narratives that were true to the universe of Helldivers 2 - while expanding upon it and sparking community engagement & virality.
On top of coming up with the ideas, forming the strategy and tactics behind it and getting approvals from internal & external stakeholders - I led a team of talented creatives to execute on the ideas as well as worked on a lot of the creative assets myself.
Here you can find a few selections from the many campaigns I was part of leading & contributing to
