The Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom update is here, and with it comes a free bright yellow armor set—that'll definitely make you an easier target for the Automatons. The TR-40 Golden Eagle armor set will be free to everyone on Thursday, but if you want to get into the spirit of the new update, you can acquire it earlier by watching a stream. Thankfully, it isn't as complicated as Twitch Drops, so you won't need to link an account or anything.
In case you were wondering, the TR-40 Gold Eagle is a medium armor set with the Extra Padding passive that provides increased armor, so it's a fairly standard set. Its main selling point is that it's perhaps the brightest armor available in the game, apparently to make you visible through "smoke, fog, and spewing viscera". So, here's what you need to do to acquire the TR-40 Gold Eagle armor set early.
As mentioned on Helldivers 2's official social media, you can get the TR-40 Gold Eagle armor set 48 hours early if you watch the Escalation of Freedom pre-recorded stream on Steam. This stream begins at 2am PT / 5am ET / 10am BST and will run on repeat for 24 hours—yes, that means it's live right now. You can watch the stream on the Helldivers 2 Steam store page, though rather than watch it at that link, I'd suggest using the Steam app on your computer or phone, since you'll already be logged in.
To get the armor you need to watch the stream for 10 minutes, according to the official FAQ, and that definitely worked for me. Simply launch Helldivers 2 afterwards and you can find the TR-40 Gold Eagle helmet and armor in your inventory. If you don't manage to grab it from the stream, fear not, devs also confirmed that this armor set will be free for everyone on Thursday, so you don't have to worry about spending Super Credits to grab it.
Devs also warned players to "Anticipate a delay in getting it, as the system won't be able to give it to everyone at the same time", so you might have to wait a little while before the armor arrives. That said, it did drop for me pretty fast, so hopefully that means things are running smoothly.
