In This Story
When we get to the fast-approaching end of 2024, and folks start talking about what ought to be crowned Game of the Year, lots of people are inevitably going to say Helldivers 2. Since its release in February, the third-person co-op shooter has been one of the most heavily played games of the year. Its fans are a really dedicated bunch, the kind of people who play the game every day, stalk its Steam player numbers, and argue the merits of every patch, big or small. And they’re dedicated for a good reason: Helldivers 2 has always been a good ass time, and now you can grab it on sale.
Just last week, Helldivers 2 was discounted on PC, and now the sale has shifted over to PlayStation, where you can grab it for $32. Considering what a good time this game can be with some friends, or even just with some randoms on the more ridiculous levels of difficulty, it’s too good a price for the game du jour. And rest assured, no matter what you may have read or heard about Helldivers 2 in the last few months, it is still very much a blast.
I think the key to what makes Helldivers 2 work so well is that it’s so simple on its face: you are a soldier sent to the frontlines of a two-pronged galactic war to face off against killer bugs and robots. That, in and of itself, is more than enough to get somebody invested in the action, at least for a match or two. From there, Helldivers 2 sinks its hooks into players very easily.
The worlds on which your battles take place have so much going on, you may be in awe from the second those boots touch ground. Visually, every planet—even the dead ones—is a marvel, and most of them actually feel distinct, whether due to changes in the biome or larger planetwide effects like fire storms or blizzards. The barks from player characters further reveal the extent of Helldivers 2’s satire and humor, which is hilariously unsubtle in its criticism of the fascist underpinnings of Super-Earth, the game’s “good guys.”
But my favorite thing about Helldivers 2 is probably how it never fails to make you feel small and weak. You are, at the end of the day, a human facing off against aliens that simply outclass you. The bug-like Terminids come in all manner of shapes, sizes, and forms that have their own capabilities. Some can fly, while others go invisible and sneak up on you to shred you to ribbons with their serrated claws. Armored brood commanders send grunts charging in your direction, and there are even massive armored chargers that emit acid-green fogs to obscure their position. Hell, there are variants of the latter that unfurl tentacles that burrow into the ground and emerge again as massive spiked tendrils that can impale you. Sure, you can call down weapons to defeat them, but in one-on-one scuffles, these things are superior to you in every way, and that’s just one enemy faction.
Due to this obvious and intentional imbalance, overcoming the odds feels clutch, and victory almost always emerges from smart interplay with your team and a smattering of good luck. I remember running from a hulking Bile Titan and facing my camera back at it while I booked it. I had nothing in the way of resources that could take it out, so I assumed I would just try to dodge its projectiles and legs for as long as I possibly could. The action felt like the big setpiece sequence of an alien invasion film, but the real movie moment came when I rounded a corner, found an ally with exactly the weapon needed to take out my pursuer, and watched them bring it down as I dove past them to safety. Sequences like this happen all the time in Helldivers 2 without prompt.
Once the action gets you, the rest of Helldivers 2 just kind of clicks into place. Resources can be found around its huge maps and put toward passive upgrades back on your ship, which forces you to explore and discover how deep these environments actually are. They are dotted with patrols, enemy camps, optional objectives, and installments, and taking on all of it can yield even deeper rewards, as well as a stronger sense of mastery over Helldivers 2. Soon enough, you’ll be undertaking major orders, defending planets or trying to capture other ones, and maximizing your loadouts and deployable stratagems like rocket barrages or heavy machine gun turrets to meet the increasing challenges of the missions you undertake.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, too. Falling for Helldivers 2 also means inevitably becoming a conspiracy theorist who constantly argues about the appearance of a third enemy faction, and the motivations of “Joel,” the developer at Arrowhead Game Studios largely responsible for the tug-of-war meta narrative that encapsulates the game. Like I said, Helldivers 2 fans are different, but they can occasionally be good fun, and if all of that sounds like a good time to you, picking this game up seems like an obvious move while it’s on sale.
