A rocky run of balance patches and technical issues hasn’t stopped the Helldivers 2 community from being wholesome as hell, as evidenced by the recent outpouring of support for a sad-looking player named Dremskiy, who is now every Helldiver’s friend.
The Dremskiy saga, as future historians will call it, started on May 13 when, as many memes have documented, screenshots emerged of a text chat conversation between Dremskiy and another player named Tolga. It’s a tale as old as time: Dremskiy joined a public lobby which wasn’t supposed to be public, and Tolga, the squad leader, apologized in advance for having to kick them so they could return to a friends-only session. The best drama authors on the planet would struggle to top the final exchange.
“Im frend,” Dremskiy said, voice quavering (I assume).
“Don’t make this more difficult,” Tolga responded, tearfully (I assume).
The interraction that can make a grown man cry from r/Helldivers
Fast forward mere hours and Dremskiy’s story is all over the Helldivers 2 community across Reddit and Discord. Memes, fan art, animations – the whole nine yards. People are calling for a cape or emblem made in Dremskiy’s honor. “Im frend” has become a battle cry for camaraderie, complete with a new user flair on the main subreddit, and even developer Arrowhead and publisher PlayStation are in on it.
“For prosperity. For liberty. For democracy. For frend,” the developer tweeted earlier today.
“Im frend,” PlayStation UK responded, and just this once I won’t break out the anti-brand quasar cannon, primarily because I don’t have to because the Helldivers 2 community has already replied to loudly remind PlayStation that nobody’s forgotten the whole PSN debacle was its idea. You don’t just become frend overnight, Sony.
Dremskiy, however, did become a community icon almost overnight. Better still, they now have a full friends list on Steam, packed with fellow divers engaging in jolly cooperation. I know this because I found them on Steam – confirming to the best of my ability that it’s the correct Dremskiy using their Helldivers 2 playtime – and Steam says their friends list is full.
When I say I found them on Steam, I mean I found them. I was luckily able to chat with Dremskiy to not only confirm this story but also get their thoughts on the whole thing. Turns out they’re a graffiti artist and have a Twitch, too.
“Yes I’m the frend,” Dremskiy tells me. I ask if they were caught off guard by the sudden wave of attention and friend requests, and if they’ve actually found some new people to play with. “Indeed,” Dremskiy says. “But I only found out today, so I’m filtering through some requests and chats here.”
Frend forever and beyond
Dremskiy
“I saw comments which made me smile. Genuinely happy for all of you,” they say of the community response. “I was just minding my own business.” Fortunately, the sudden spotlight hasn’t been a problem for them. “I don’t use social media a lot, so yeah its all cool ‘n stuff,” they say. “But I understand the meme. Because frend 😀 Always stay positive.” Oh, and for the record, there’s no hard feelings toward Tolga: “I genuinely am not upset he said I can’t play within his party. I was looking for a random match.”
Amazingly, they hadn’t yet seen that even Arrowhead and PlayStation had joined in on the fun. I alerted them to the tweets above, and their response was golden: “Wait the devs are? You’re joking right? Okay now I’m getting a bit anxious if the devs respond and stuff. What am I supposed to say or do?”
I asked if they have a message for the folks who’ve rallied around the frend banner. “I’m frend,” they begin. “Frend forever and beyond. Since the devs are taking notice of this I want to thank them … A lot of people are complaining about this and that about the game, but as far as I’m seeing it’s doing really good.” They say their only real problem is “when you dive into the ground and certain areas in the map you would get stuck and glitch.”
“Other than that it’s just an amazing experience,” they say of Helldivers 2, adding that they’ve clocked over 100 hours in the game and have reached rank 41.
In my search, I also spotted a Steam user named Frend of Dremskiy, which goes to show how far this trend has spread. What’s more, Dremskiy has received several Steam awards, including four “Take My Points” medals and five “Warm Blankets.” You’ve got to love a genuine case of players rallying to co-op with someone who, even if their story was slightly dramatized, looked to be in need of friends. Sorry – frends.
This one probably won’t make the store but I couldn’t help it from r/Helldivers
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