The most fun I had with a 4-player co-op game since Deep Rock Galactic. Helldivers 2 is addictive, chaotic, and fun without feeling so compromised in terms of the fundamental elements that are well put together, which is impressive for Arrowhead's first attempt at a third-person perspective. The presentation is top-notch in terms of the visuals that make each planet where you exterminate bugs or robots so distinctive, and the sound design is excellent too. My only complaint on the presentation side is that the music is pretty generic and repetitive after a while.
I do want to talk about monetization, which has been contentious with folks. As I have mentioned in the past, I don't have a problem with monetization as long as it values my time and doesn't penalize me for not spending real money. Helldivers 2 is a good example of my point. You can get premium currency right away with real money, but if you choose to play the game, it doesn't take that long to get enough premium currency to unlock stuff, which I can't say the same for most other recent live service games. It's leaning way more towards Deep Rock Galactic's approach than say any modern Blizzard game in terms of the spectrum.
Finally, I do want to mention that the game runs smoothly on PS5 during gameplay with no hiccups at all, despite how impressive it looks and how much is going on the screen. It did unfortunately crash a few times at random for me and the servers need some serious improvements like making the quickplay work properly. I'm not gonna harp on it too much because the devs are extremely aware of it and they didn't expect this game to explode in popularity. I'm just kind of annoyed that I can’t feast further into this incredible package due to the server problems
In conclusion, it's wonderful to see time a complete PVE co-op experience made by people who are big fans of it, but also understand how to make it fun without alienating their consumers and all that for just 40 dollars/euros?! if this is the direction that they will spearhead with post-launch support. I will 100% see myself coming back to it constantly in the future once these devs have finally fixed the servers.
I do want to talk about monetization, which has been contentious with folks. As I have mentioned in the past, I don't have a problem with monetization as long as it values my time and doesn't penalize me for not spending real money. Helldivers 2 is a good example of my point. You can get premium currency right away with real money, but if you choose to play the game, it doesn't take that long to get enough premium currency to unlock stuff, which I can't say the same for most other recent live service games. It's leaning way more towards Deep Rock Galactic's approach than say any modern Blizzard game in terms of the spectrum.
Finally, I do want to mention that the game runs smoothly on PS5 during gameplay with no hiccups at all, despite how impressive it looks and how much is going on the screen. It did unfortunately crash a few times at random for me and the servers need some serious improvements like making the quickplay work properly. I'm not gonna harp on it too much because the devs are extremely aware of it and they didn't expect this game to explode in popularity. I'm just kind of annoyed that I can’t feast further into this incredible package due to the server problems
In conclusion, it's wonderful to see time a complete PVE co-op experience made by people who are big fans of it, but also understand how to make it fun without alienating their consumers and all that for just 40 dollars/euros?! if this is the direction that they will spearhead with post-launch support. I will 100% see myself coming back to it constantly in the future once these devs have finally fixed the servers.