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  1. Games
  2. Third Person Shooters
  3. Helldivers 2

How to kill Crushers in Helldivers 2

Guides
By Will Sawyer
Published 17 August 2026

How best to bring down the Illuminate's Crushers in Helldivers 2

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Helldivers 2 Crusher winding up overheard slam with club in front of player
(Image credit: Sony)
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Helldivers 2 Crushers are the lumbering monstrosities that belong to the Illuminate, capable of insta-killing players with brutal blows from their clubs. Currently, you'll only find them in Helldivers 2 missions where the Vote Snatcher enemy sub-faction is active, but it's very important that you know how to put down a Crusher efficiently if you are to survive. So, having fought many of these massive foes myself, here's everything you need to know about killing Illuminate Crushers in Helldivers 2.

Best ways to kill Helldivers 2 Crushers

Helldivers 2 Illuminate Crushers pursuing player

(Image credit: Sony)

There are two ways to kill a Crusher, neither of which are especially easy. The first is to shoot them constantly until they die, and the other is to destroy their helmet and then shoot their very weak head.

The simplest of the two is to riddle them with bullets. Crushers have a lot of health and regenerate unless they're taking damage, so you'll want fast-firing weapons on you to wear them down without them self-healing – their lack of armor also means light-armor-penetration weapons will suffice!

Therefore, some of the best Helldivers 2 support weapons for the job are things like the Machine Gun, Heavy Machine Gun, Bullet Storm, Maxigun, Stalwart, and WASP Launcher. Crushers are also vulnerable to fire (as are Helldivers 2 Wretches!), so the Cremator and Flamethrower are great choices as well.

Helldivers 2 player aiming at Illuminate Crusher's exposed head

(Image credit: Sony)

Alternatively, destroying the helmet and shooting the head is a much faster way of killing a Crusher, but requires specialized gear. The helmet counts as heavy armor, so you need to hit it with a heavy-armor-penetration weapon. Support weapons like the Autocannon, Railgun, Recoilless Rifle, Expendable Anti-Tank, Commando, Quasar Cannon, and plenty more are good options for this, but you could also use the Senator revolver or Bolt Pistol – two of the best Helldivers 2 secondary weapons.

Once you've destroyed a Crusher's helmet, its tiny head weakspot will be exposed. Like the rest of its body, it has no armor, so you can shoot it with any weapon, and the Crusher should fall very quickly.

Crushers are otherwise quite a simple enemy to deal with but are incredibly lethal. Their overhead slam attack has surprising reach and can kill Helldivers instantly. My only other tip is to keep as further away than you think is necessary from Crushers because I've been caught out by that overhead attack so many times – if you find yourself a little too close for comfort, start sprinting and diving to get out of clubbing range.

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CATEGORIES
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Will Sawyer
Will Sawyer
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Guides Editor, GamesRadar+

Will Sawyer is a Guides Editor at GamesRadar+ with over five years of experience in writing online guides, news, and features, and has a BA (Hons) in Journalism. Starting as a freelancer, Will contributed to startmenu and Game Rant before joining the GamesRadar+ team in August 2021. Since then, he has written hundreds of guides about a huge range of games, with shooters and action games being his areas of expertise. Outside of writing about games, Will hops between multiplayer shooters with friends, such as Darktide and Helldivers 2, and delves into whatever has been on his backlog for far too long. He also tries to get through his never-ending Warhammer pile of shame of grey Tyranids, Aeldari, and Chaos Space Marines.

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