How to Get Medals Fast in Helldivers 2: Best Difficulty, Orders and the 250 Medal Cap

Every weapon, armor set, stratagem and booster on a Helldivers 2 Warbond page costs Medals. Super Credits unlock a Premium Warbond, but Medals are what you actually spend inside it. New Warbonds keep arriving, so plenty of players are always short on Medals. The good news is that they're easy to earn once you know where they come from. The catch is a hard cap, so you need to know when to stop and spend.

This guide is correct for the current version, patch 7.2.2 (1.007.202, live since October 29, 2026). The Medal rewards below apply to this patch.

Quick answer

Requirements

• No unlock needed. Medals drop from your very first mission, and the free Helldivers Mobilize! Warbond takes Medals only.
• Access to higher difficulties if you want the best payouts. Operations on Hard (difficulty 5) and above have three missions, which is where the big rewards are.
• Room under the cap. Check your balance before a long session. If you're close to 250, spend first.

How many Medals each difficulty pays

Medals are paid per mission, and the amount climbs with each mission you finish in the same operation. Finishing the whole operation adds up to the totals below.

The jump at Hard is the important one. Below difficulty 5, operations have only one or two missions and pay very little. From Hard upward, every operation has three missions, and the last one pays the most. A full Super Helldive operation pays 36 Medals, so about seven of them take you from zero to the cap.

Step-by-step: the fast Medal routine

1. Do your Personal Order first. It's the daily challenge on the right side of the Galactic War map. It pays 15 Medals, which is more than a full Challenging operation. It rotates daily, so check in every day you play.
2. Pick the highest difficulty your squad can clear reliably. A failed mission pays nothing. A steady Suicide Mission (24 per operation) beats a Super Helldive you keep failing.
3. Choose short missions. Blitz missions and quick objectives such as clearing bug holes are popular for Medal farming. Rewards depend on difficulty and where the mission sits in the operation, not on how long it takes.
4. Finish the whole operation. Each mission pays more than the one before it. Quitting after mission one leaves the biggest reward on the table.
5. Grab Medal caches when they're close. Crashed pods, cargo containers and two-person bunkers at points of interest can hold 1 to 3 Medals. Don't detour far for them, though – finishing missions pays better.
6. Play toward the Major Order. Major Orders are community goals for the whole player base. When an order succeeds, everyone who takes part in the war gets a payout. That's typically dozens of Medals, and big orders can pay 100 or more. Diving on the planets the order targets helps it succeed.
7. Spend before you hit 250. Open the Acquisition Center on your ship, pick a Warbond and unlock what you want.

What to spend Medals on

Medals only have one job: unlocking items on Warbond pages. Each Warbond is split into pages, and you have to spend a set number of Medals on a page before the next one opens. The free Helldivers Mobilize! Warbond needs nothing but Medals. Premium and Legendary Warbonds must be unlocked with Super Credits first. After that, every item inside still costs Medals.

A few ground rules for spending:

• Prioritize items you'll actually use. A primary weapon, support weapon or stratagem you plan to bring every mission is worth more than an emote.
• Use cheap filler to open pages. If the item you want sits on a later page, buy low-cost items on the current page to reach the threshold.

Tips

• Keep a buffer below the cap. Major Order payouts land automatically and can be large. If you're sitting at 200 Medals when one pays out, most of it vanishes. Keeping your balance around 100 or lower is a safe habit.
• Stack Medals with other goals. Personal Orders, Major Orders and operation rewards all come from normal play. Run operations on Major Order planets, and finish your Personal Order along the way.
• Bring a friend for bunkers. Bunker doors need two players on the keypads at the same time.
• Low difficulties aren't a Medal farm. Trivial and Easy are great for farming Super Credits, but they pay only 1 or 2 Medals per operation.

Common mistakes

• Hoarding Medals. There's nothing to save them for once you hit 250. Anything earned above the cap is simply lost.
• Abandoning operations early. The third mission on Hard or higher pays the most Medals of the three.
• Overreaching on difficulty. A failed mission pays nothing, so a difficulty you can clear consistently earns more per hour.
• Ignoring the Personal Order. At 15 Medals, it's the best payout for the time it takes in the whole game.
• Spending without a plan. Plan your path through a Warbond before spending, since each page only opens after you've spent enough on the one before it.