To celebrate Helldivers 2's first birthday, GM Joel recalls his favorite community moments that are now "canon" and "part of Helldiver lore"

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It's hard to believe that we've been spreading democracy and destruction across Helldivers 2's galaxy for an entire year now, and one developer has been behind almost every surprising twist and turn: game master Joel (or J.O.E.L.) To celebrate the breakout shooter's first anniversary, the D&D-style architect is listing his absolute favorite community-driven moments.

"Over the course of the last year of the galactic war, we have, on numerous occasions, been positively surprised by the actions and choices the community have taken," Joel says in a new video embedded below. "Choices that are now canon. That are now part of Helldiver lore for all time."

Chronicles of J.O.E.L - A Game Master's Review of the Galactic War - YouTube

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The first episode in the series recalls The Defense of Mort, an in-game event that tasked the entire community to defend a planet for two whole days. But it makes the list because the Helldiver's eventual victory was only guaranteed in the last few minutes.

Joel remembers that during the start of the galactic war, while humanity were busy squashing bugs, the sly Automaton Legion got aggressive and moved toward Super Earth. For two weeks, the game was full of bot-based defend events. "The Helldivers were somewhat successful in preventing the Automatons from amassing too much, but the one moment where that tide properly turned was on the planet of Mort," the game master recalls. "That 48-hour defend event came down to the last three minutes."

What makes the defense of Mort so memorable for Joel was how the community banded together to turn what was "projected to be a defeat" into a win. You see, the mission was ending on a Tuesday, the same day when Valve usually takes Steam offline for some maintenance, which left all PC Helldivers MIA during a crucial turning point in the war. But across Reddit and Discord and every other social media site, divers saw the clock ticking and rallied together - and it was perhaps the first but definitely not the last time that so many players got behind a unified, self-organized campaign against the odds. Joel calls the feat "the most nail-bitingly close win we had seen up to that point."

Check out our guide to the best Helldivers 2 weapons.