Helldivers 2’s R-36 Eruptor Is Your New Best Friend For Clearing Bug Holes

A Helldiver looks out at bugs in the distance.

Arrowhead Studios continues loading up Helldivers 2 with new content including a new powerhouse rifle with jet-propelled shells that explode on impact. It’s called the R-36 Eruptor and it makes clearing out Automaton Fabricators and Terminid bug holes a breeze. You’ll need to fork over some cash or grind super credits to unlock it, but once you do it’s well worth the investment. It’s so strong it feels like it should be locked behind its own stratagem.

Added on April 11 as part of the Democratic Detonation premium warbond, the Eruptor is a bolt-action gun with a mean scope that’s great for wreaking havoc on enemy bases and patrols from a distance. While slow to fire and hard to aim, it packs a huge punch and is incredibly satisfying to use. More importantly, it will even occasionally let you one-shot fabricators and holes.

A Helldiver shoots a bug hole.

Its armor-pummeling power makes it an especially strong tool against automatons, which players spent most of the last week fighting after a surprise ambush unleashed a new wave of AT-AT-style “factory striders” along the northern part of the galactic war map. But the Eruptor is no slouch against the bugs either, which a new Major Order has tasked players with killing 2 billion of before the end of the week.

And if you’re anything like me, always coming up one stratagem and a few grenades short of clearing those last couple of bug holes in the Terminid outpost, the Eruptor is a life-saver. No more dying before blowing up the last hole and then getting reinforced on the opposite side of the map. The long range means that if you can get the right angle, you don’t even have to be too close to danger either.

A menu screen shows the Eruptor’s stats.

To unlock the Eruptor you’ll need to first splurge on the Democratic Detonation warbond which costs 1,000 super credits. Hopefully you’ve been saving up all the ones you find out on missions or have unlocked from previous warbonds. Once acquired, you just need 120 medals to nab it. If it’s been a minute since you’ve logged back into Helldivers 2, you probably have that many just waiting for you from all of the community’s other recently completed Major Orders.

Is the Eruptor the best gun in the game now? Probably not. The other weapons in the arsenal each have a specific mission or type of encounter that they’re better suited to, and pound-for-pound the Breaker remains the most versatile and all-around great weapon. The Sickle is also still second to none when it comes to mowing down mobs of swarming enemies. If there’s only one gun you buy a premium warbond for, though, it should definitely be the Eruptor.

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