Helldivers 2 is one of those hidden-gem bargain-bin type games you buy on a whim and enjoy it thoroughly for the first 30 some hours. It's one of those games that hits every box for that game you have been dying to play but haven't found.
Helldivers 2 is one of those games that has insane potential.
But that's all Helldivers 2 really is. Potential. Despite how much fun I had when it released, I struggle now to bother opening the game. This mostly has to do with this game's overall lack of content.
Well, ok, there is a lot of content in this game, with dozens of planets with unique environments and a nice variety of missions and loadouts, but that variety only goes so far. A lot of the joy I got from this game initially was from the mystery of it all, be it discovering new enemy types or using a new loadout. But after a while, that novelty wears off. You find your favorite gun and strategem loadout and run with it every match. Each enemy starts to feel very plain and predictable, with the ramping difficulty just being "you die in one hit."
"But they're adding new content," you say. "They keep adding stuff!" This is true, however this feed of content comes through an insatiably slow drip feed, a consequence of the live service model. The developers clearly had a lot of this content ready by launch and deliberately chose to withhold it. On one hand, I find this commendable; It's the perfect way of keeping up the novelty of "newness" I mentioned earlier, and continues to give players shit to experiment with. Yet, that rollout is painfully slow. Moreso that each new rollout is seemingly mediocre, especially with the Patriot, the first and last big drop the game made. The wait between each drop and it's contents is just not enough to warrant that wait.
While the core combat of this game is very solid, the enemies lack a good amount of variety. Sure, there is variety, but each enemy type boils down to 3 types of enemies + a boss, with each subtype of enemy just varying in size and power. It all feels super samey after a while and thus becomes hard to be completely engaging. Honestly, if this game needs more of anything it's enemy variety. There is a fantastic chunk of player weaponry and supports, that I could really care less about the latest battlepass because I've already crafted my perfect loadout. The more enemies that get added, the more fun the game gets. Most of this game is just destroying waves of bugs and machines, and it's very fun, so more variety on the enemy side would do wonders for replayability.
Really, where Helldivers 2 falls flat is just in variety. It's the one thing it lacks. Despite how engaging the combat is and the enemy design may be, running the same missions that require a lot of slow walking against the same 3 enemies gets old.
This game needs vehicles or something, walking from point to point is insanely boring on lower difficulties and almost frustrating on higher difficulties. The player does not move fast enough or have anywhere near enough stamina to warrant running across a massive map. Sure, from a design perspective you look at this and this and think, "Well, it gives the player a choice to get into combat," which is a fair point, however each main objective is already packed with combat, and most of the time the players goal isn't to kill, but to go to a point. If any team is really going for the objective, they're better off just running past the enemies and dealing with them later. It's a bit antithetical. The reward for destroying waves (outside of outposts/hives) is simply not enough to warrant spending your ammo on enemies between points.
Ok, so that's what I dislike about Helldivers 2. So what is there to like? A lot, actually.
The main draw I noticed from a lot of people is how this game treats live service. Not in a "permeant battle pass" way or "lacking predatory microtransactions" way, but in a "you actively matter" way. Sure, the other 2 are nice bonuses, but this games main appeal is in its narrative. Unlike most other live service slopfests like Destiny 2, the story progresses as you play. As in, each battle you fight counts towards said planets liberation and ultimately helps with the war. It's sick! Not often does a game let you feel this involved with what's happening. When you play, you actively contribute, and it's a pretty good motivator for wanting to keep playing. At the same time, that's all it is. Even when the playerbase completely pushed back the Automatons, they got no real reward in return, just locking themselves out of that gamemode until the devs decided to issue a new order. It's just a novelty. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing else outside of that. No real narrative is happening, no real reward for clearing each planet. Just a "Yeah guys! We did it!" Regardless, this way of writing the story has formed an insane community and brought people together in ways every GaS wishes it could.
The worldbuilding is great. Super Earth is comically super fascist and insanely funny to listen to. It's parody so strong it's openly comedic while still being decently critical. Very rare can a game center its world around such an unserious idea without diminishing its tone. Sure, it's very Starship Troopers with the stylization of Halo, but it's good. It's hard to get bored of, each NPC and lorebit has its own share of obscenity to it and it never stops getting boring, the writers are constantly coming up with insane ideas in each order log that continues to be a decent parody. It's fun to roll with, and that makes getting into the mindset that much better, and thus has created such a strong community because they can all get behind the absurdity of it all.
The combat itself is very smooth. Guns feel good, movement is pretty solid, and shooting a flamethrower has never been cooler. Helldivers absolutely nails its power fantasy. Overall, the whole game is a feat in user experience. Explosions are rightfully awesome, ripping through hoards is sick, and dropping through a Bile Titan with a respawn pod is one of the coolest things ever. Despite lacking camera movement, Helldivers 2 is beyond cinematic and just watching the game unfold is a joy. This game wants you to feel awesome, and you fucking will. The core gameplay is incredibly refined.
Though, this polished core has one fault. Helldivers 2 begs you to play with others. Playing solo is either insanely boring or near impossible. The difficulty doesn't scale with your squad. Either you find 3 other friends to get into this game with, or you play with incompetent randoms. If you know what you're doing, you can make 2 people work between 6-7, and with 3 you can probably get through 8-9, but the best experience is with the full 4, and the game makes sure you know that, giving you more respawns per player with the difficulty staying nearly the same, along with each person only being allowed 1 modifier buff. Playing solo is just not an option, and any game like this should allow for its core game mode to be both feasible and fun for solo players.
Overall, Helldivers 2 is very fun, at least for a while. Despite being very polished it has a few stand out imperfections that do impact my overall enjoyment. There needs to be more variety, more unique interactions. Traversal needs to be more enjoyable, combat needs to have a better motivator outside of "survive," and solo play needs to be manageable. If you can get past that, there is a very good 7/10 to be had with your friends.
Helldivers 2 has a lot of potential at its core, it just needs more, and that more needs to be delivered faster than it currently is.
Helldivers 2 is one of those games that has insane potential.
But that's all Helldivers 2 really is. Potential. Despite how much fun I had when it released, I struggle now to bother opening the game. This mostly has to do with this game's overall lack of content.
Well, ok, there is a lot of content in this game, with dozens of planets with unique environments and a nice variety of missions and loadouts, but that variety only goes so far. A lot of the joy I got from this game initially was from the mystery of it all, be it discovering new enemy types or using a new loadout. But after a while, that novelty wears off. You find your favorite gun and strategem loadout and run with it every match. Each enemy starts to feel very plain and predictable, with the ramping difficulty just being "you die in one hit."
"But they're adding new content," you say. "They keep adding stuff!" This is true, however this feed of content comes through an insatiably slow drip feed, a consequence of the live service model. The developers clearly had a lot of this content ready by launch and deliberately chose to withhold it. On one hand, I find this commendable; It's the perfect way of keeping up the novelty of "newness" I mentioned earlier, and continues to give players shit to experiment with. Yet, that rollout is painfully slow. Moreso that each new rollout is seemingly mediocre, especially with the Patriot, the first and last big drop the game made. The wait between each drop and it's contents is just not enough to warrant that wait.
While the core combat of this game is very solid, the enemies lack a good amount of variety. Sure, there is variety, but each enemy type boils down to 3 types of enemies + a boss, with each subtype of enemy just varying in size and power. It all feels super samey after a while and thus becomes hard to be completely engaging. Honestly, if this game needs more of anything it's enemy variety. There is a fantastic chunk of player weaponry and supports, that I could really care less about the latest battlepass because I've already crafted my perfect loadout. The more enemies that get added, the more fun the game gets. Most of this game is just destroying waves of bugs and machines, and it's very fun, so more variety on the enemy side would do wonders for replayability.
Really, where Helldivers 2 falls flat is just in variety. It's the one thing it lacks. Despite how engaging the combat is and the enemy design may be, running the same missions that require a lot of slow walking against the same 3 enemies gets old.
This game needs vehicles or something, walking from point to point is insanely boring on lower difficulties and almost frustrating on higher difficulties. The player does not move fast enough or have anywhere near enough stamina to warrant running across a massive map. Sure, from a design perspective you look at this and this and think, "Well, it gives the player a choice to get into combat," which is a fair point, however each main objective is already packed with combat, and most of the time the players goal isn't to kill, but to go to a point. If any team is really going for the objective, they're better off just running past the enemies and dealing with them later. It's a bit antithetical. The reward for destroying waves (outside of outposts/hives) is simply not enough to warrant spending your ammo on enemies between points.
Ok, so that's what I dislike about Helldivers 2. So what is there to like? A lot, actually.
The main draw I noticed from a lot of people is how this game treats live service. Not in a "permeant battle pass" way or "lacking predatory microtransactions" way, but in a "you actively matter" way. Sure, the other 2 are nice bonuses, but this games main appeal is in its narrative. Unlike most other live service slopfests like Destiny 2, the story progresses as you play. As in, each battle you fight counts towards said planets liberation and ultimately helps with the war. It's sick! Not often does a game let you feel this involved with what's happening. When you play, you actively contribute, and it's a pretty good motivator for wanting to keep playing. At the same time, that's all it is. Even when the playerbase completely pushed back the Automatons, they got no real reward in return, just locking themselves out of that gamemode until the devs decided to issue a new order. It's just a novelty. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing else outside of that. No real narrative is happening, no real reward for clearing each planet. Just a "Yeah guys! We did it!" Regardless, this way of writing the story has formed an insane community and brought people together in ways every GaS wishes it could.
The worldbuilding is great. Super Earth is comically super fascist and insanely funny to listen to. It's parody so strong it's openly comedic while still being decently critical. Very rare can a game center its world around such an unserious idea without diminishing its tone. Sure, it's very Starship Troopers with the stylization of Halo, but it's good. It's hard to get bored of, each NPC and lorebit has its own share of obscenity to it and it never stops getting boring, the writers are constantly coming up with insane ideas in each order log that continues to be a decent parody. It's fun to roll with, and that makes getting into the mindset that much better, and thus has created such a strong community because they can all get behind the absurdity of it all.
The combat itself is very smooth. Guns feel good, movement is pretty solid, and shooting a flamethrower has never been cooler. Helldivers absolutely nails its power fantasy. Overall, the whole game is a feat in user experience. Explosions are rightfully awesome, ripping through hoards is sick, and dropping through a Bile Titan with a respawn pod is one of the coolest things ever. Despite lacking camera movement, Helldivers 2 is beyond cinematic and just watching the game unfold is a joy. This game wants you to feel awesome, and you fucking will. The core gameplay is incredibly refined.
Though, this polished core has one fault. Helldivers 2 begs you to play with others. Playing solo is either insanely boring or near impossible. The difficulty doesn't scale with your squad. Either you find 3 other friends to get into this game with, or you play with incompetent randoms. If you know what you're doing, you can make 2 people work between 6-7, and with 3 you can probably get through 8-9, but the best experience is with the full 4, and the game makes sure you know that, giving you more respawns per player with the difficulty staying nearly the same, along with each person only being allowed 1 modifier buff. Playing solo is just not an option, and any game like this should allow for its core game mode to be both feasible and fun for solo players.
Overall, Helldivers 2 is very fun, at least for a while. Despite being very polished it has a few stand out imperfections that do impact my overall enjoyment. There needs to be more variety, more unique interactions. Traversal needs to be more enjoyable, combat needs to have a better motivator outside of "survive," and solo play needs to be manageable. If you can get past that, there is a very good 7/10 to be had with your friends.
Helldivers 2 has a lot of potential at its core, it just needs more, and that more needs to be delivered faster than it currently is.