How to complete the Kill 500 Terminids personal order in Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 kill terminids challenge — (Image credit: Sony)

The Helldivers 2 Kill 500 Terminids personal order, aka "Pest Control", is the daily challenge wherein players must go to war against the bugs. It's certainly a simple task and one you'll likely make some progress on when playing the game normally, but not necessarily an easy one, and players who pick the wrong missions or approaches might find themselves struggling to wrack up the bug-killing numbers. Fortunately, as masters in pest control even before Super Earth was demanding a quota on it, we can walk you through how to kill 500 Terminids in Helldivers 2 and complete the daily order for yourself.

Helldivers 2 Kill 500 Terminids guide and walkthrough

To kill 500 Terminids in Helldivers 2, it goes without saying that you want to go to bug-controlled planets on the Eastern side of the galaxy, but once you're there, there's some things to keep in mind.

Certain missions are great for mass bug killing - the "Eradicate Terminid Swarm" mission literally makes that the main objective.
After testing, we can confirm that Sentry kills do count towards kills - though the historically unreliable stat recording in Helldivers 2 means that we have noticed some notable discrepancies between kills recorded in a match and actual progression in the order.
Higher difficulties will result in more enemies as a rule - but again, you risk getting overwhelmed.
Pick out Stratagems that wipe out enemies in groups - the cluster bombs, the laser rover, and the orbital laser can all tear through bugs quickly.
Extractions and Nests both mark opportunities for lots of quick kills.

Enemies of democracy in Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 enemies list
Helldivers 2 Bile Titans
Helldivers 2 Chargers
Helldivers 2 Hunters
Helldivers 2 Stalkers
Helldivers 2 Illuminate

Once you get 500 Kills, you'll be rewarded with a tasty clutch of 15 Medals to put towards the Warbonds battle passes. It's worth keeping in mind also that while kills are important for this challenge, in the vast majority of play you don't actually get a reward for killing enemies - XP is based on objective completion, not number of kills. It just so happens that for the Pest Control objective, they're one and the same.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.