Helldivers 2

Originally Posted 5/10/24

A screenshot from Helldivers 2 where 2 players have their right fist up in a salute, and a third has their arms spread out, making it look like they're patting the other two on the back. They are on a ship in space overlooking a red planet with a bunch of other ships orbiting the planet.

Brief Overview

Quick Overview

Helldivers 2 is a third person PVE shooter game. You play as Helldivers liberating the galaxy. The game features a great sense of progression and really commits to the bit. It's also refreshing that most of the unlocks in the game can only be unlocked by actually playing the game, rather than just paying money for them.

In Depth Review

The game is fun. If you're a fan of third person PVE shooters, this is a really easy recommendation. The premise is over the top and ridiculous, and I absolutely love it.

The general game play loop of the game is you start on your ship, pick a difficulty level and either start a mission yourself or join other players on their ships/missions. There are a handful of different objectives in the game, and they can vary based on difficulty level. For example, on lower levels a mission might be to take out a strong enemy, while on higher difficulties those enemies are just enemies you can run into it. While on each mission, you'll be fighting an almost constant barrage of enemies, while also trying to explore the map for side objectives and samples. Each mission you complete, you are rewarded with whatever samples you successfully extracted with, an in game currency I want to say is called credits (maybe requisition slips), and are rewarded with Medals, as well as you gain experience. Missions come in sets of three, and the more in the set you complete the more medals you get. So, for example, the first mission you do in the set might be worth 5, the second 7, and the third 9. You can do the missions in whichever order you like. Also, if you join someone elses squad and they're on their third mission, you'd get the max amount of medals for that set (so, in my example above, 9).

Once you're back on your ship, you can spend credits to unlock more strategms (based on your level). Strategems are additional things you can call in during the mission. There's a variety of them, but range from things like stronger weapons, attack drones, bombing runs, and mechs. Samples are spent on making upgrades to your ship, which give you overall bonuses. For example, one of them increases strategm fire damage by 25%. Medals are spent on acquiring items from warbonds. There is a base one that has a lot of items in it. I only just unlocked all of them, and most players don't even do that. You can unlock other warbonds by spending Super Credits. Super Credits can be found in game, purchased with real world money, as well as unlocked in warbonds. It works out where if you get all of the super credits available in a warbond, you only need to spend I want to say $2-$5 to get the remaining super credits neeeded to unlock another warbond. Overall, not bad. That and, even once you unlock another warbond, you still need medals to unlock the items in it. And the only way to get medals is by playing the game.

At this point, you might be asking what are in the Warbonds? Warbonds in general feature armor, weapons, super credits, or boosters. Boosters are squad wide enhancements during a mission. For example, one increases stamina recovery.

What I Like About Helldivers 2

It was genuinely shocking to me how many hours I've put in the game so far, and plan to keep putting into the game. I was also surprised at how long I've been playing the game for at this point. When I bought the game back in February, I worried it was going to be one of those games my friends and I played a lot of for a month, and then we'd just sort of stop. But here we are, 3 months later, where a lot of my friends are still playing this game daily.

I think what has helped keep my attention with this game is a few things:

  1. Progression is really well done. I always feel just a few games away from my next unlock. This always gives me something to look forward to.
  2. The missions don't take too long. The missions have time limits to them, and are typically 40 minutes at most. Most missions are done within a half hour or less. This makes it really easy to just pop on the game for a little bit, and then get off.
  3. The community is pretty good. While friendly fire is a thing in this game, I don't think I've run into a player yet that I'd consider toxic. Compare this to League of Legends where it feels like every game has at least one toxic person in it, this is honestly a bit of fresh air.
  4. The weapon variety is really good. It seems like there's always another weapon or strategem I want to try out. Someone online made a comment that each strategem feels like it has its place. It's really easy when you first pick one up to be like "this seems really bad?". As you use it though, you'll start to figure out which situations it shines in. For me a really easy example of this are the Eagle strategems. When I first started the game I thought they were basically useless, but now they're some of my favorites. This sort of exploration is really fun to do.
  5. The game has a lot of funny moments. There have been so many times where my friends and I get into a silly situation, or find some sort of weird interaction that ends up cracking us up. An example is they recently released a new airburst rocket weapon. I figured I'd try it out right at extract because once you're on the extract ship you're invulnerable. Well the weapon had a much shorter range than I expected, and ended up killing me and my brother in a glorious explosion.
  6. The game has strategy. For players who are more strategic, there is plenty here. From figuring out which boosters or strategems to take for each player to maximize preparedness for any situation, to even just in the missions figuring out who should do what it's great. You run in 4 man teams, but often in higher missions we'll split up either solo or in groups of 2 to do things. And it's great watching everyone work together towards a goal.

Let's Address Some Negatives

One thing to address is a recent scandal the game had. Sony decided to force all PC users to sign up for a PSN account. This sparked a lot of outrage with players. The main reason, as far as I could tell, was becasue there are a lot of countries where you simply can't make a PSN account. Countries where people had already bought Helldivers 2, and had many, many hours in it. Steam even began delisting the game in countries that couldn't have PSN accounts, as well as offering refunds for people even if they had over 100 hours in the game. While Sony did reverse their decision, it has left a sort of sour taste in peoples mouths.

The only other real complaint I have about the game, which feels like I'm getting really knit-picky, is that there is a cap to the resources you can have. This isn't an issue early on in the game really, but as you play more you quickly are either stuck at the resource limit, or need to buy unlocks you don't really want. It's not the worst thing, but I personally would prefer to stock pile money for something I want, rather than needing to spend it so that rewards from missions aren't just pointless.

Wrap Up

Overall, I really enjoy Helldivers 2 and I think it's an easy recommendation for people who like third person shooter games. It's a lot of fun and I hope the game continues to get better. Also from the perspective of what the game costs vs how much I've played it, this game is really worth it's cost. But let me know what you think. Feel free to reach out to steventanzimedia@gmail.com.