Helldivers 2 Major Orders: How They Work, Rewards and History

Major Orders are Helldivers 2's community-wide objectives: one shared goal for the entire player base, tracked on the Galactic War map, with a deadline — and when the community hits the target, everyone who participated gets a reward (medals, and occasionally unique gear). They're the game's meta-story engine: Arrowhead's game masters write them to push the war narrative forward, and since June 2026 the Control Center on your ship tracks them alongside campaigns and rewards. This guide explains how they work, what you actually have to do, what you get, and the biggest orders in the game's history.

Official resources: Steam store page · Helldivers Wiki (wiki.gg) — Major Orders · Fandom — Major Orders · Polygon — How Major Orders drive the narrative

What Are Major Orders?

A Major Order is a global, time-limited objective that every Helldiver contributes to. Standard missions contribute to the Galactic War automatically (liberating or defending planets), but a Major Order puts a specific target on the board — "Liberate planet X", "Defend planet Y", "Kill 40 million enemies with the Constitution rifle" — with a countdown. Every mission completed on the relevant front counts toward it, and if the community clears the target before the timer, the order completes and rewards are distributed.

They're delivered as briefing texts in-game, written in full Super Earth propaganda voice — the same tone that made the game famous (the wiki's Major Orders page archives the complete history, and Polygon's piece is the best explainer of how Arrowhead uses them as the narrative engine: the orders are the story, complete with "reports" that sometimes turn out to be lies).

Official source: Helldivers Wiki — Major Orders — "Major Orders are objectives given to all players, with a time limit. Completing them rewards Medals and contributes to the progression of the Galactic War."

How to Complete a Major Order

There's no separate queue — you just play normally toward the order's objective:

1. Open the Galactic War map and read the current Major Order briefing (or check the Control Center on your ship, added with the June 2026 update, which archives ongoing and past orders, campaigns and rewards).
2. Play missions on the required front. If the order says "liberate X," run missions on X; if it says "defend X," run defense missions there. If it's a kill order (like the Liberty Day Constitution kills), every kill by every player counts.
3. Every contribution adds to the community pool. Your personal progress isn't the goal — the global progress bar is. Even one mission helps.
4. If the community hits the target before the deadline, you get the reward (assuming you participated — participating usually means completing at least one mission toward the order).

What matters more than your skill is where the community plays. The DSS guide covers the station's role here: the DSS is the community's force-multiplier for exactly these objectives, and coordinated voting has won and lost orders.

Major Order Rewards

Rewards scale with the order and the game's era:

• Standard reward: Medals. Most orders grant a fixed medal payout to all participating players on completion — the main fuel for Warbond unlocks.
• Event rewards: unique gear. The 2024 and 2025 Liberty Day orders gave the Constitution rifle + armor (2024) and the Liberty Day cape (2025).
• Community rewards: gear and weapons added to the game. Historically, some major campaign outcomes have triggered weapon/stratagem grants — the wiki's Major Orders page logs the full list of reward types.
• Narrative rewards: the war state changes. The biggest "reward" is often the story itself: the Illuminate invasion, the Cyberstan offensive, the Liberation of Super Earth arcs all ran through Major Orders. Since June 2026, the Galactic Campaigns system ties order completion to campaign objectives too.

How Often Do Major Orders Appear? (And What Happens on Failure)

• Frequency: orders run continuously — one ends, another starts within days. There are also Minor Orders / Personal Orders (daily personal challenges like "kill 20 Troopers") that pay medals without the community scope.
• Failure is possible and it's content: when the timer runs out short of the target, the order fails — the war state shifts accordingly (a planet stays occupied, a narrative beat happens anyway), and players get nothing for that order. Some of the game's best moments came from failed orders: Arrowhead's game masters write forward regardless, and the community treats failure as part of the story.
• Difficulty scaling: Arrowhead has tuned order targets over time (the 2025 Liberty Day 40-million-kill order was famously tight — a 24-hour deadline the community just barely cleared).

The Biggest Major Orders in Helldivers 2 History

• The Constitution rifle order (2024): the first Liberty Day order — the community cleared the target and everyone got the meme rifle.
• The Illuminate return (December 2024): Omens of Tyranny's launch was framed as an order-driven event; the community's response to the Illuminate invasion defined the next year of the war.
• The 40-million-kill Constitution order (Liberty Day 2025): 24 hours, one meme rifle, one cape — the tightest and most memorable order to date.
• The Cyberstan offensive (2026): the push to the Automaton homeworld, tied to the Bastion tank and the Machinery of Oppression era — a multi-stage order arc that introduced the Vox Engine and the new Automaton units.
• Battle of Super Earth (2025): the Heart of Democracy invasion arc that brought the Leviathan to Super Earth's cities.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Major Orders in Helldivers 2?

Community-wide, time-limited objectives set by Arrowhead's game masters — like "liberate planet X" or "kill 40 million enemies with one weapon." Every player's missions contribute to a global progress bar, and completion rewards everyone who participated.

How do you complete a Major Order?

Play missions on the front the order specifies before the deadline. Your contribution adds to the community pool; if the global target is hit in time, the order completes. The Control Center on your ship (added June 2026) shows active and past orders.

What rewards do Major Orders give?

Medals for standard orders; unique gear for special events (the Constitution rifle and armor in 2024, the Liberty Day cape in 2025). Some campaign outcomes also gate weapons and stratagems, and the war-state changes are themselves the biggest reward.

How often do Major Orders appear?

Continuously — one ends and another starts within days. Separate daily Personal Orders give medals for individual challenges like killing 20 Troopers.

What was the biggest Major Order in Helldivers 2?

The Liberty Day 2025 order — 40 million Constitution rifle kills in 24 hours for the Liberty Day cape — is the most memorable. The Cyberstan offensive (2026) was the largest multi-stage arc, spanning the Machinery of Oppression era and introducing the Vox Engine.

Related Guides

• Helldivers 2 DSS — How It Works & How to Vote
• Helldivers 2 Liberty Day — October 26 Event Guide
• Helldivers 2 Super Credits Farm — Fastest Methods
• Helldivers 2 Terminids — Full Enemy Guide & Weaknesses
• Helldivers 2 Troopers — Weaknesses & How to Kill Them
• Destiny 2 Dungeons Guide

Last updated: August 13, 2026.