“Get to the extraction now or we die!” said my friend as he stood his ground and defended the Pelican-1 that arrived for our extraction at the end of a Helldivers 2 mission. It really takes an immersive co-op experience for a person to be this emotional in a game.
“You shot me!” I said as I was making my way to the extraction. Turns out, in an effort to defend extraction at any cost from giant alien bugs, my buddy ended up shooting in my general direction. He mistakenly landed a shot on me, which killed me because the game has friendly fire.
We had no more respawns left and he had to extract alone, which resulted in the mission rewards being reduced. But the real reward was one of the funniest co-op moments we have ever had. Whether you win or lose, you are guaranteed to have fun along the way, and that is Helldivers 2 in a nutshell.
Winning The Galactic War With Democracy
Helldivers 2 is built around an over-the-top and patriotic theme: Democracy is the only answer against the Terminid and Automaton invasion that is threatening the galaxy with Super Earth in its center. It is clearly satire, unlike what some people on the internet believe.
The game has great humor, with lines like, “Only good bug is a dead bug”. Not only does it form the basis of the game’s narrative, but it also gives players a fun roleplay concept.
When I first started the game, it put me through this training course out on a barren desert planet. The location only had a voice from high command instructing me on what to do, with no actual people or players around.
When I finally completed the training, my character was put into a rocket as it blasted off into space with tons of other rockets in the background. Helldivers in mass quantities were being sent off to war as quickly as possible.
The tutorial is literally the only part of the game that is somewhat scripted and linear. After that, the game threw me onto my very own Destroyer – a huge spaceship capable of launching Helldivers and firing weapons from orbit.
By the way, I love the naming system for the ship; I actually spent at least 20 minutes trying to decide between weirdly hilarious options like Fist of Family Values, The Princess of Individual Merit, or The Patriot of Patriotism. It is a clear indication that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously and just wants the player to have fun (which is severely lacking in games these days).
A Real-Time Narrative Controlled By Players
After the tutorial, it was up to me to decide the next course of action. The ship has a Galactic War Table which is essentially a map of the galaxy with hundreds of planets. Here, I get to decide which war front I want to head to and which unliberated planet within that sector I want to drop into.
My main directive is simple – protect Super Earth at all costs, which is smack dab in the middle of the galactic map. On the left edge of the galaxy is the Automaton front where the robotic machines are pushing their way to Super Earth. On the right side is the Terminid invasion multiplying rapidly and capturing planets as they near Super Earth.
Which planets are liberated and which planets fall into the hands of the enemies are entirely decided by the effort of us real players. If players manage to liberate all planets within a sector, then the adjacent sector going away from Super Earth gets unlocked.
But if players don’t manage to liberate planets in time, the planet falls. And if all planets within a sector fall, the enemy moves to the next sector closing in on Super Earth. Yes, the game does not have a typical story with a decisive start and finish, but this concept works 10x better for the type of game Helldivers 2 is.
I have never seen a concept like this before in any live service games. Players being able to decide the fate of the universe creates such fun and entertaining moments for the community as a whole. Recently, a planet called Malevelon Creek was lost to Automatons, and it led to social media uproar. This planet was nick-named “Robot Vietnam” by the players due to its jungle-like biome and the brutal difficulty of fighting against the robots compared to bugs.
This kind of social community interaction can only take place because of this unique concept that lets players dictate the story.
The Democratic Freedom Of Choice
It was time to finally dive into hell. When selecting a planet of my choice, I am also given multiple choices of missions on that planet, each in a different region. The planets have a real day-night cycle as well, so it can even transition into daytime as you are playing the mission.
Planets also have certain modifiers based on their environment and weather. Cold icy planets usually have a modifier that slows down the overheating on certain weapons, while hot desert planets will make your stamina drain faster due to the heat.
After I dropped on the surface of Errata Prime via the Hellpod, I was stunned by the absolute beauty of the vast rocky planet. The graphics of Helldivers 2 are some of the best I have seen despite the lack of ray-tracing. Playing on the PS5, the frames never stutter in intense combat either, and it gives a smooth 60fps gameplay through and through.
During my first few missions, I had no idea what I was doing and I absolutely loved that. Too often I play games that hold my hand through everything, and it ends up feeling like a sort of interactable movie. As a gamer, I should truly have the freedom to decide whatever I want to do.
The game lets me experience failures and learn from them rather than pointing me in a specific direction. The satisfaction you get from playing a game like this and getting good at it is not the same as a linear game where every move is mapped out.
When you start to understand things and do everything perfectly, you know that it’s from your own experience that you learned. As a Level 1 Helldiver, I felt like I was really a rookie who didn’t know how to effectively deal with swarms of enemies.
Fast forward to Level 15 and I actually feel like I’ve been in many wars. That I am like a veteran who knows exactly how to deal with the enemies cause I had to figure it out myself. This progression of slowly ggrinding and unlocking new equipment and weapons is what keeps Helldivers 2 so addictive and fun.
Absolute Co-op Perfection
Helldivers 2 features a unique gameplay element called Stratagems. These are things you can call down to the surface via your destroyer, things like Support Weapons which are your main class of powerful weapons. You can call down an orbital bombardment on a specific location, destroying everything where it drops.
These Stratagems are summoned by holding the Stratagem button and pressing a unique combination of directional input (up, down, left, right). This is a genius way to get around the lack of buttons on a controller, but it also makes for good-old gaming experience where you start memorizing these combinations. It is a part of being good at Helldivers 2.
Each Helldiver can only carry 4 Stratagems per mission, which creates a perfect opportunity for co-op gameplay. A Helldiver can specialize into a role with their Stratagems.
For instance, you can have one player bring destruction and aggression with orbital strikes, 500kb eagle bombs, support weapons like rocket launchers and railguns, etc. Then you can have the other player be the defense and support character equipped with Stratagems like the Sentry & Mortar Turrets, Guard Dog rover drone, or even a shield generator.
With up to 4 players in a single party, each Helldiver can select different Stratagems, creating a team that is capable of doing almost anything. But watch out for those highly explosive bombs as the game does have friendly fire.
Most people would not like friendly fire and assume it isn’t there since that’s the norm. But Helldivers 2 has friendly fire put into the game very intentionally. It forces players to be more immersed and aware and position themselves so that they don’t hit their teammates. Not to mention it also creates some downright hilarious moments between friends.
A Unique Experience Every Single Time
Helldivers 2 uses procedural generation to create the levels that players drop into. Even when I was dropping into the same planet doing the same mission, it never really felt the same as the environment and the POI locations were completely different.
Each mission required me to take a specific approach based on the generation of that level, from where I would drop to how I would go about doing the objectives. Sometimes due to how a map was generated, it was favorable to do the main objective first and then rotate around to the secondary ones. Other times it was the outposts that needed to be done first since they were far from the extraction zone.
Besides the locations, even things like the time of day and the ever-changing weather create a unique experience every single time. Having a dust storm suddenly appear on a planet completely changes the way you approach combat engagements due to the sudden lack of visibility.
When it comes to progression, it rewarded me with new items and equipment fast enough that it never felt like I was just using the same weapons over and over again. Helldivers 2 features a battle-pass-like progression system called Warbonds, which is similar to how BP works in Fortnite.
Missions reward you with Medals, and you spend Medals on the Warbond to unlock weapons and cosmetic items. Each page of the Warbond requires you to spend a certain number of Medals before you can unlock the items on the next page. This is entirely free and only adopts the concept of battle pass.
There is a premium Warbond that comes pre-unlocked with the Super Citizen Edition of the game, but even the Standard Edition players can unlock it by collecting 1000 Super Credits in the game. The free Warbond actually gives you 1000 Super Credits by the end of it anyway, which guarantees the premium Warbond unlock to all players.
With the unlocks being super fast and not grindy, each mission was like a playground for trying out these shiny new weapons and explosives I and my fellow Helldivers had bought. But this is also concerning as there isn’t much to progress in the game after you have unlocked everything. The progression is what makes the game so fun.
After unlocking most of the things in the game, it can feel a bit repetitive. The number of unique mission objectives is also something that I would’ve preferred to have more of. By Level 12-15 I had seen all the possible mission objectives on both war fronts and was just repeating the same ones. But, because the missions are generated procedurally, the feeling of repetition gets blurred.
Some things in the game are just so good that they never get old. Things like doing the ICBM mission and watching the nuke explosion in the distance. Or bringing down the massive and towering Bile Titan Terminid boss enemy with a 500Kg Eagle Bomb. Or watching an Orbital Laser come down from your destroyer to obliterate any enemy in its path.
Verdict
Helldivers 2 is one of the best co-op titles of this generation, whether you want to play with friends or randoms. It is highly addictive and always makes you want to do one more mission before you go. The game is a must-play title that almost creates its own genre due to how many fresh and unique gameplay mechanics it has to offer.
Helldivers 2 is a game that prioritizes fun over everything, does not have pay-to-win microtransactions, and costs half the price of a regular next-gen AAA title. Its massive popularity is truly deserved, and I’m definitely not putting down my controller on this one anytime soon.
Helldivers 2 is a game that prioritizes fun over everything, does not have pay-to-win microtransactions, and costs half the price of a regular next-gen AAA title. Truly worth it!
The Good
- Amazing co-op experience
- Visually stunning graphics
- Fun gameplay that is easy enough to understand but hard to master
- Community-driven narrative
- An affordable title that delivers more than what you paid for.
The Bad
- Can get slightly repetitive after many hours of gameplay.
