While everyone in my circles booted up Helldivers 2 last week excited to unlock the exploding crossbow, grenade pistol, and the wild micro-missile-firing Eruptor, my eyes were locked on a different prize. Resting comfortably on the first page of the Democratic Detonation warbond is a new rifle that sticks out: the BR-14 Adjudicator. It's the only gun in the warbond that doesn't blow stuff up, which is weird, but I was excited to test what appeared to be a new assault rifle. Maybe it would finally give me a reason to hang up my Liberator.
Then the warbond came out and everywhere I looked the Adjudicator was catching flak. YouTubers declared it a bottom-tier garbage gun, and its reception on Reddit was only marginally more nuanced. The consensus among Adjudi-haters is it's a confusing gun that doesn't fulfill a role in Helldivers because of its super high recoil, low fire rate, and tiny 25-round magazine. After spending a week with the Adjudicator, I think these reviews are incomplete to the point of misleading. A lot of people are misunderstanding what the Adjudicator is good at, and why it has quickly become one of my favorite primary guns in Helldivers 2. Hear me out.
