This week the Helldivers 2 community forum was temporarily closed after police said bullet casings found near a Utah shooting included an engraving and an input matching an in-game stratagem. The game, developed by Arrowhead Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, was reported to be closed on September 13, 2025.
Police reports say one casing was engraved with the phrase “Hey, fascists! Catch!” followed by a sequence written as Up, Right, Down, Down, Down, the precise input used to call the Eagle 500kg Bomb in Helldivers 2. The sequence has drawn attention because players describe the Eagle strike as the most destructive single ordnance in the game. A social media post highlighting the input circulated on Twitter; the tweet is linked below. Reporting also ties the wider incident to coverage of Charlie Kirk’s killing, which has prompted multiple outlets to follow the developing story.
The discovery prompted moderators to lock the Helldivers Reddit page while they decide how to handle the spike in discussion and posts. It is not confirmed whether the engraving was an intentional reference to the game or a coincidence; police statements are the primary source for that detail. Coverage of the incident has appeared on sites such as Kotaku, and earlier reporting linked the event to a separate workplace incident involving a Sucker Punch employee in a related story about online reactions to the killing, described here as a social media gag by a Sucker Punch employee. The motive and any direct connection to the game remain unclear pending investigation.
Players and observers have pointed to the game’s stratagem inputs as the likely inspiration for the engraving; Arrowhead’s original announcement and ongoing posts about the title outline those mechanics in play. The developer previously explained stratagem inputs in an earlier communication, visible at the Arrowhead Studios announcement. Moderators closing a major community hub has cut off a central channel for discussion while moderators and platform staff assess risk and moderation policy. Community reactions have been muted in official channels but loud across scattered social threads and screenshots.
⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩ (Up, Right, Down, Down, Down) is an orbital stratagem code from the game Helldivers II. It calls in an Eagle airstrike that drops a 500K bomb — the most destructive piece of single ordinance in the game. https://t.co/GzMvH9Dxrj pic.twitter.com/7M2nfvQFGJ
— Steve Skojec (@SteveSkojec) September 12, 2025
Damn. Not for nothing, but it’s gonna be weird to have one of these tattoos
byu/ChildhoodSea7062 inhelldivers2
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