I don’t normally jump on bandwagons and almost as a rule of thumb, I avoid online multiplayer games. But I found myself drawn by both the buzz and premise of Helldivers 2, the latest “it” game courtesy of Arrowhead Game Studios. In a year where such live-service games as Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and Skull and Bones have failed to make an impression with gamers, Helldivers 2 is not only a surprise hit, but it’s a breath of fresh air for the genre. Here’s my impressions of the game, publishing as a level ten player.
Unlike the original game, which was a top-down shooter, Helldivers 2 is an over-the-shoulder third-person game with first-person elements. This allows for some truly frantic moments, as you’re that much closer to the action and mayhem. You play as a nondescript Helldiver, a soldier fighting for the glory of Super Earth. The game is very tongue-in-cheek and evokes the satirical nature of Starship Troopers. You fly from planet to planet in a ship of your naming (from the uber-serious Wings of Freedom to the downright humourous Superintendent of Family Values; mine is the Whispers of Midnight) and fight the hordes of baddies on said planet to spread managed democracy and liberty (or should I say, liber-tea).
There are two enemy factions, at least at the time of this writing. There are the Terminids, giant bugs that are part of the reason why this game is being compared to Starship Troopers, and the Automatons, which are very Terminator-esque in their design. You, with up to three other friends or randoms, set out to complete a series of objectives and “spread managed democracy” across the planet. Each win contributes to the war effort in Super Earth’s favour, while each loss for the enemy faction. As the game evolves over time, due to the live-service nature of the genre, more maps, enemies, and weapons will be added to the game while the narrative, controlled by a game master, dictates how well or poorly the forces of Super Earth are doing in the war. Just the other day, the much-contested and much-talked-about Malevelon Creek, aka “Robot Vietnam”, fell to the Automatons and its impact has been compared to the Fall of Reach in the Halo canon within the gaming community. There were actually gamer news stories published, as if it was a real event.
Thankfully, Helldivers 2 isn’t a repetitive game, despite its simple premise. Missions are varied as well, from doing geological surveys, launching nukes, taking out nests, and defending a location. You’re also encouraged to explore, which can net you valuable resources that can be used to upgrade your ship while finishing missions and earning medals to help with unlocking weapons and Stratagems. You can equip a series of Stratagems to your ship, powerful attacks, or resources that can turn the tide of battle. By inputting a code very similar to an old cheat code (down, down, right, up, or something to that effect), you’ll get a new shiny weapon from the ship, more ammo, or a missile barrage from the ship waiting in orbit, such as a napalm strike or a guided laser.
Friendly fire is always on, it should be noted, so when dropping napalm from the sky or shooting wildly at the horde in front of you, make sure you don’t hit your buddy as you’ll take them out too. I may or may not have accidentally bombed my own team more than once. To be fair, they did walk right into the line of fire. I also let my ammo resupply drop completely squash a bio titan, the biggest and toughest bug enemy in the game, in one lucky shot. But that adds to the layer of zany humour this game goes for. You can play the game solo (you still need an online subscription), but the game doesn’t scale by the number of players on the map, so you’ll get the same level of resistance on a map going in by yourself versus going with a squad, so going in with others is encouraged and honestly, is more fun.
A lot of live-service games make their money in the form of micro-transactions, added costs to the game on top of the retail cost of the game. The aforementioned Suicide Squad and Skull and Bones are full-priced retail games and expect you to pay into their economy to get better loot. While there are microtransactions in Helldivers 2, they don’t feel essential for having fun and you can earn the Super Credits that can be bought with real-world money as you play the game. The CEO of Arrowhead, Johan Pilestedt, has also made some surprising statements that go contrary to the ethos of a live-service game, telling potential clients to wait until the game is polished (as its popularity crashed the servers early on) and to wait until they may have more funds, urging them not to just blindly buy the game. Wait, what? This mindset actually has helped with the popularity of the game, as it does against the flow of other studios, who nickel and dime the fandom (remember Ubisoft saying Skull and Bones was a “quadruple-A” game when it really wasn’t? Pepperidge Farm remembers).
For the reduced cost of the game and the promise of an ever-evolving campaign and more updates to come down the line, Helldivers 2 is a surprisingly solid recommendation from me. It’s available on PS5 and PC and features crossplay between the two platforms. For the cost alone and the amount of fun you’ll have, I encourage you to do your duty and help Super Earth spread democracy across the galaxy today.
ScreenHub Entertainment 