"The automatons were wiped out. Yes, the 'Hell Diver 2' community defeated them. They were scrapped, cooked, and never came back (according to Super Earth). Everyone thinks they will eventually return in a storyline twist, but for now, half of the game's enemies can't really be fought.

However, the galactic map in "Helldiver 2" says that there are still thousands of divers active on the recently liberated automaon planets of the Severin system. What's up?

As one of the players who can still fight the bots, I can confirm that the map is not lying, although I can hardly tell for myself. Some players still have access to Maia and other automaton planets, as several Reddit users have shared in the past 24 hours.

"IT DOESN'T END TILL I SAY IT DOES," the user fullfilled wrote.

"WE ARE STILL FIGHTING IN MAIA! SEND DUDES," said Suvaius.

Without seeing for yourself, you'd think these people were sharing old screenshots, but it's true. The divers are hunting down the last survivors of the robot army. Unfortunately, this means that the Super Earth parade celebrating the "total eradication" of automatons is premature.

I think it has something to do with players returning to "Hell Diver 2" after a few days away. The last time I played solo was a few days ago. I was on a campaign on the robot planet Maia, so when I logged in today my ship was still in orbit there and I could select the campaign.

The mission loaded normally and I was surrounded by automatons as if the war would never end. Of course, if I wanted to stay in the aftermath of the bots, I probably shouldn't have jumped into the level 7 mission solo without a shield backpack. The bot tore through my five lives in record time and I returned to my ship. Unable to choose another campaign this time, my extended stay on the automaton front was officially over.

So how long can the 5,000 or so players still in Maia as of this writing keep it up? This number is about double what it was last night, suggesting that more stragglers are being kicked off the planet as they finish their campaigns.

Jumping into the bot mission was a little different than knowing that this would probably be the last time (for a while, anyway). This time a day ago, no one knew that Arrowhead would be bold enough to shut an entire faction out of the game. I took a moment to savor the bot drop and appreciate the little things that make combat with automatons so much fun. Their flanking tactics, their ranged attacks, the way the grunts bolt when you shoot them, or the satisfaction of seeing a devastator's head pop when you've nailed their only weak spot, the front, perfectly.

Grateful for the opportunity to say goodbye to the sorry scum before they truly go extinct, a privilege denied to millions of divers. I took a picture to commemorate the occasion: