Malevelon Creek has been a white whale of the Helldivers 2 community going on months, now. A gloomy, bot-ridden world where the trees speak binary, the Creek has always had a contingent of determined divers plugging away their hours (and bullets) into it. Always.
Bugs swarming planets? The creekers are crawling. Bots advancing to Cyberstan? The creekers are crawling. Vital defences happening mere planets away? The creekers are, in fact, crawling.
That changed recently when the creek became the star of the show, with a recent major order demanding that players liberate it. They pulled it off, along with a sterling defence effort—and at the time of writing, Malevelon Creek is currently under Super Earth control.
Earlier in the week, the Helldivers Twitter account declared April 1 the official day of remembrance—one that's now been reflected in-game with an official decree from the Super Earth president, and also a cool cape.
"Every year on this day, Super Earth citizens will unite for a full three minutes of their lunch break in solemn remembrance of those who gave their lives to free Malevelon Creek." The wording here is genuinely very funny—three minutes of their lunch break implies that the remembrance service is eating into their time off, rather than something added onto it. Not that I'm complaining, or anything. Please don't tell my democracy officer, I'm already in trouble for Illuminate thought crimes.
To commemorate, all divers will be given a free cape by Super Earth decree, "so they may carry the memory of their fallen companions into battle." 'Companions' may be a strong word if you were one of those players irritated by the creeker's deep, trauma-fuelled attachment to space Vietnam. But Super Earth says they were your brothers in battle, so you're gonna salute, dangit.
In case you're wondering where your commemorative mug—I mean, cape—is, the capes are being delivered piecemeal, as a Discord announcement pleads: "Please be patient while this cape is delivered to your Destroyer." In other words, it'll show up eventually.
The cape itself, while stylish, confers a patriotic benefit of absolutely nothing to the Helldiver wearing it—other than the knowledge that the Creek Crawlers will never be forgotten.