While it might feel like you’re letting your team down at the time, a big part of the Helldivers 2 gameplay loop is dying. When you die, you’re replaced by one of the millions of other Helldivers who signed up to protect Super Earth and fight for democracy. The game’s universe is built around the idea that Helldivers are being thrown at enemies until those enemies are beaten. The more bodies, the better.
However, this gameplay loop falls apart when reinforcements don’t work. Other players must use a Reinforcement Stratagem to call a new soldier into the fray for you to control, and without that soldier, you’re useless. This can happen from time to time, but there is a way to fix the Helldivers 2 reinforcements not working. There are also a few things to avoid so you can stop it from happening at all.
How to fix Helldivers 2 reinforcements not working
To fix the Helldivers 2 reinforcements not working, you need to remain in the mission and wait for the reinforcements to trigger once again. When it happened to me, I was stuck on the death screen but with a sliver of health. This means that my Helldiver is still technically alive, but the others in the mission couldn’t call a Reinforcement Stratagem down to recover me.
After two minutes or so and an objective being completed, the game worked out the problem, and the Reinforcement Stratagem was available again. I really do mean only two minutes because this happened to me twice in a single mission, and I barely noticed the time I was waiting, but I was waiting for a while and hadn’t been before.
How to avoid breaking reinforcements in Helldivers 2
To prevent reinforcements from stopping working in Helldivers 2, you must avoid drowning in water and try to keep your Helldiver as close to the rest of your team as possible. This issue hit me after my Helldiver drowned first, and then it hit me again while trying to secure a silo for the Termicide Tower objective. The second time it hit me, the fix came much faster, which I think is down to how close I was to the other Helldivers in the mission.
If the reinforcements not working bug continues to hinder your gameplay, you should quit the mission and go back to your ship, but only if you’re not the host. If you leave the mission, you can rejoin it and should be able to finish it alongside the other players. However, if you’re the host, then you should remain in the mission and wait for the reinforcements to start working again.
