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Patriot, Super Earth needs you! That’s right, it’s time to enter the world of Helldivers 2, a game that puts you on the front lines defending your home planet and spreading democracy through the galaxy. Is it a fight worth dying for? You bet it is, soldier!
A triumph for Managed Democracy!
Helldivers 2 sets the tone immediately and the very tongue-in-cheek patriotic bluster that is on display in the intro video remains consistently entertaining throughout your experience. From the brilliantly bombastic drill sergeant marching you through the tutorial level to the ‘helpful’ training manual tips that you see in the loading screens, the humour is superb. The story, if you can call it that, is pretty light to touch to say the least. Even so, it sets the scene for all that you really need to know - humans are under attack and we must fight back. There are Terminids (essentially giant bugs) and there are Automatons (evil robots) and you can pick which enemy type to fight against. What follows is a trip to a planet that needs liberating where you will select a mission type from a decent variety of different options. Some missions involve saving human scientists and escorting them to escape shuttles, others might require you to hunt down factories or nests depending on the enemy type, and others need you to secure an objective like a valuable geological sample or an ICBM that needs launching. The missions are different enough to keep things from becoming stale, and there’s plenty of side objectives, points of interest, and samples to collect. Some of these also hint at a deeper level to the story such as the illegal broadcast towers. You’re tasked with destroying these by any means possible, but closer inspection of what they’re sending out reveal messages such as “THE BUG MENACE IS A SUPER EARTH CONSTRUCT!”, hinting that Super Earth might not be entirely in the right... If some of you are getting echoes of a certain movie involving starships and troopers then you’re thinking along the right lines. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then it’s fair to say that Arrowhead Studios (the makers of Helldivers 2) have been paying a lot of compliments to that particular franchise. Still, it’s a setting that works perfectly for a squad based shooter game and what it lacks in originality it makes up for in good writing, a superbly rousing soundtrack, and most importantly a core gameplay loop that keeps you coming back for more.
I’m doing my part!
Let’s talk then about the gameplay in Helldivers 2. Thanks to the very minimal story behind the missions and the intentionally simplistic narrative it would be easy for this game to be purely a novelty. Sure, it’s funny to see the satirical propaganda and interesting to experience the different enemy types and planet environments, but ultimately if the gameplay wasn’t good Helldivers 2 would have been a flash in the pan that was already over. Thankfully that’s not the case, and the Arrowhead team have clearly worked hard on making interesting and varied weapons and support tools (called Strategems in the game). They’ve also crafted enough different unit types with unique strengths and weaknesses to make you want to keep moving up the difficulty levels so that you can experience the toughest opponents the game has to offer. The way these enemies mix and team up against you will certainly keep you on your toes and at the higher difficulties it’s very easy to suddenly find yourself completely swarmed by huge groups. At times it can feel incredibly chaotic, but it also produces such memorable moments that even when you lose you can’t help wanting to go straight back in and try again.. There’s a strong emphasis on teamplay and community, with everybody in your squad sharing the rewards from your missions and the entire player-base sharing a strategic map that indicates in real-time which planets are under attack, which have been fully liberated, and what the shared community objectives are. These “Major Orders” are a focal point for players to rally around, and they’re more than simply a way to gain in-game currency. The most recent Major Order is to retake a planet from the Automatons that has exosuit technology slated for imminent fleetwide deployment. This isn’t just flavour text, there really was a planned release for exosuits into the game, which the developers had been teasing for several weeks before. Had the community failed to complete this order then that release would apparently have been “severely delayed”, putting real gameplay rewards on the line to encourage players to do their part. It’s a great concept that has the Helldivers 2 community desperately recruiting their squad-mates to join them and advance their collective progress on the Major Orders.
Damn dirty bugs!
Helldivers 2 is a great game that I’ve put a lot of time into already, but I should also mention that it does have a few bugs I’ve encountered (and no, I’m not just talking about the Terminids). At times the controls can feel a bit unresponsive, particularly when trying to switch between prone and standing, and I’ve had a bug just today where I could no longer change between primary and secondary weapons until I died and respawned. I have also been stuck on, or inside, scenery more than once, and there’s been a few times where character models have gone a bit crazy or larger enemies have flown into the air for no apparent reason. There were also a number of server issues at launch, though thankfully the developers seem to have sorted those problems now. Overall though none of those technical problems have been enough to make me want to put down this game. It remains to be seen whether new updates like mech suits, deployable walls, or other vehicles will manage to keep things as balanced as they feel right now, but for the moment I’m having more fun with Helldivers 2 than I’ve had with any squad based shooter since the early days of Call of Duty Warzone. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some democracy to spread!
