Videogame Review: Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 is, as the kids say, based.
I never played the first one. Bought this purely because of the hype and man am I glad I did. It is the Starship Troopers videogame experience I never knew I needed in my life.
The game is a pretty simple third-person horde shooter where you and three bros drop down onto alien planets and battle against waves of enemies while completing tactical objectives. The ‘gameplay loop’ (I kind of hate that term) is extremely optimized. You have missions that go from 10–40 minutes on average and all feel very cinematic. It is an easy game to just pick up and play in small spurts either solo, with friends, or randoms online.
Helldivers 2 puts a lot of triple A games to shame with just how fun it is. Honestly one of its biggest flexes is the fact that it’s $40 and doesn’t include any predatory monetization; you can unlock everything you want in a reasonable amount of time by just playing the game. You’ll want to just play the game too because it is really addictive. The gunplay is satisfying and the enemy variety pretty great. The bug and robot enemy factions provide two very different experiences. The stratagem abilities are also endlessly fun. You can call down airstrikes, railguns, sentries, drones, and even mech suits.
“Variety” is the key word with this game. It isn’t just the weapons and enemies. It’s also the different worlds. I love the plethora of different weather effects and environmental designs. We get creepy twilights, blazing rocky deserts, meteor showers, flame tornados, earthquakes, colorful jungles, and plenty more. My only wish is for urban environments to really spice up combat.
Helldivers 2 is unique in that the ongoing story is influenced by the community’s actions. Every mission contributes to the liberation or defense of a different planet. As planets are lost or won, the story evolves leading to new features and challenges. The studio has deep engagement with the player base and a sort of game master named Joel. This strong community element combined with the game’s aesthetic most certainly contributed to its viral success.
The actual game story is pretty threadbare. You play as a faceless soldier thrown into a massive interstellar war between humans of ‘Super Earth’, the communist automatons, and the terminids, affectionately known as ‘bugs’. The Helldivers are commandos that launch from orbit directly into warzones in ‘hellpods’ and fight to spread “managed democracy.” The over the top jingoistic aesthetic is hilariously tongue and cheek. I love how the air support fighters shout, “Administering freedom!” when they bomb the enemy. What’s more the dark side of Super Earth is hinted at in many subtle ways, such as a maintenance clerk mentioning how great it is that Super Earth lets her lease the equipment she uses for her job at a fairly low interest rate.
You don’t need to be an expert in media literacy to understand that Helldivers 2 is not literally advocating fascism. All you really need is a sense of humor. The Starship Troopers movie worked similarly as both a biting satire and just a straightforward fun action movie (quite a departure from the brilliant Starship Troopers book by Heinlein which advocated for Fascism quite unironically). You can recognize that the human soldier protagonists live in a kind of dystopia without rooting for the giant bugs or robots.
To me the most subversive thing about Helldivers 2 is simply the disposable nature of your playable character. You will die a lot in this game. Every time you do, another hellpod is shot down from space with fresh meat to let you try again. If you understand the mechanics, you’ll realize that you are actually playing as your ship as it gains new stratagems and modules while sending down endless reinforcements into the meat grinder. Gaming is chalk full of chosen ones, Master Chiefs, Solid Snakes, Vergils, and invinceable Hitmen who can slowdown time and kill 10,000 bad guys in a cutscene. In Helldivers 2 you’re just a hapless mook who will be lucky to last five minutes before being blown up and replaced by the next victim. The disconnect between that reality and all the in game propaganda builds a surprisingly intelligent commentary on militarism.
But at the end of the day, you needn’t worry much about any of that. Just shoot the bugs and have fun.
Helldivers 2 has one major issue: It is very unstable. I have encountered a number of bugs (heh) in the dozens of hours I have played. Game freezes, crashes, soft locks, and disconnects are very common. It can be frustrating to experience especially deep into a mission when trying to grind for resources. However as someone who just plays for fun and doesn’t treat it like a job, it did not bother me too much. I will say though that I would absolutely love a proper single player or offline mode, or perhaps p2p random missions with friends. Live service online games only last as long as their player base sticks around. A game as well-designed and endlessly replayable as this merits investment into its longevity.
Outside of the gameplay bugs, I really have nothing negative to say about this game. It has potential for an incredibly long shelf life. New weapons, stratagems, enemy factions, environments, and challenges are bound to keep the party going provided the dev team doesn’t drop the ball. This is an easy one to recommend. Do you like fun? Get it.
Grade: A-
