Looking back, we might have, along with millions of others, gotten caught up in that delightful wave of Super Earth propaganda when Helldivers 2 was released at the start of the year. We certainly did our part to defend Democracy from both bug and bot, and part of the magic of Sony's surprise multiplayer hit was how loose it all felt, with new features and enemies seemingly appearing on the fly. We are so far through the looking glass now that we aren't quite sure we believe developer Arrowhead when it says they don't playtest new features in live games.
Nevertheless, in a post on Reddit, Arrowhead community manager Baskinator attests that devs don't use identifiable dev tags in-game, nor do they test features during live matches. This seemingly confirms that the early mech leak and the still yet-to-be-officially seen APC were exploits and the work of unsavoury hacksters. As always, Baskinator reminds Helldivers to report dissidents to the nearest Democracy Officer.