Helldivers 2 is solid, but it's more the product of zeitgeist in a genre and format the industry has neglected than it is the result of being a truly great game. In the multiplayer space there are very few PvE games and even less good ones which is one reason Deep Rock Galactic has had such a long tail. Helldivers 2 is similar to Deep Rock in many ways and has been pretty popular as a result. It's also the first half-decent horde game outside of CoD Zombies mode since Left 4 Dead 2. Make it scifi with bugs and borgs instead of zombies and you've got something a bit unique.
But there are issues here and without some substantial changes, I'd expect the playerbase to absolutely crater. There's just not enough progression in the game. There's not enough things to collect, reasons to collect them or checklists to tick off. Planets take a long time to take, as they should, the other elements of the game can be completed quickly (by grindy mmo-esque standards) and the battlepass is kinda thin and shitty (locking away gameplay changing items behind premium currencies).
There needs to be far more cosmetics at minimum, taking inspiration from Destiny or Warframe. There needs to be more loot like extraction shooters Tarkov and The Cycle. There needs to be a more engaging battlepass like DotA or Fortnite.
Right now the game is a game-as-a-service with a $40 entry fee. That's a barrier already (that will inevitably be dropped in a F2P switch late in the game's lifespan). But then the gameplay loop is mostly...fine? It is fun. Kind of. Higher difficulties, Difficulty 6 and up), are far too punishing for people to enjoy regularly farming. Lower difficulties are far too easy to remain engaging. The sweet spot for most players will be difficulties 4 & 5, but those come with their own problems.
Most missions are best served by just avoiding combat. Don't fight anything. Just run to where you need, drop an orbital strike, repeat, extract. The high stress moments of epic firefights, daring escapes, exciting rescues just are never worth their effort. There's no multiplier for bugs you kill or specialty loot for taking down certain kinds of bugs or really any incentive at all to brawl with dropship after dropship of endless bots. It's not even like a Call of Duty: Zombies mode or even just a game like Project Zomboid where it's defined by failure. The goal being to see just how far you can get before it ends. In Helldivers 2 you can leave whenever you want, and are rewarded for doing so.
So why fight? Why engage with the game any deeper than it rewards you. Sure, maybe you'd do so just because you love the gameplay, but some fights are punishingly fruitless. The waves of superheavy enemies are endless and the mission & map variety is minimal. So you'll just requeue into doing the exact same thing. The emergent gameplay value and RNG is low so it's not like a Tarkov experience, it truly is more like Call of Duty where you know you'll go to this part at this point to get this thing to finish this mission. There's a solved puzzle in each map when you load in. There's little to discover.
Helldivers 2 is fun. Almost. It undoubtedly has a ton of potential. The galactic war uniting Helldivers players across the world is a lot of fun and the PvE nature creates a highly welcoming community. But there aren't even clans/squads/units or something that helps foster that community within game. Players are tuning to other social media (Reddit/TikTok/Facebook) to create those things. The gameplay is really fun for about 5 hours until you realize you've seen all there is to see and now you have to dig down into enjoying just that loop for the sake of that loop. Which is tough when there's no real sense of progression. It's not like a single player game where you're trying to complete the levels or grab the collectibles or finish the levels faster and faster to beat your best time. It's not like other multiplayer experiences where there's tons of things to find and unlock and different game modes to play and cosmetics to show off.
It's a very nearly fun game with not a lot of meat on the bone yet. And I assume that once people have had their fill and their friends stop playing, they will too. There's nothing to keep you here. And once that exodus begins, it won't stop. And the gameplay isn't even as deep as something like Diablo IV so there won't be anything to stem the bleeding. Without major changes, Helldivers 2 will be a ghost town in six months.
Here's hoping.
But there are issues here and without some substantial changes, I'd expect the playerbase to absolutely crater. There's just not enough progression in the game. There's not enough things to collect, reasons to collect them or checklists to tick off. Planets take a long time to take, as they should, the other elements of the game can be completed quickly (by grindy mmo-esque standards) and the battlepass is kinda thin and shitty (locking away gameplay changing items behind premium currencies).
There needs to be far more cosmetics at minimum, taking inspiration from Destiny or Warframe. There needs to be more loot like extraction shooters Tarkov and The Cycle. There needs to be a more engaging battlepass like DotA or Fortnite.
Right now the game is a game-as-a-service with a $40 entry fee. That's a barrier already (that will inevitably be dropped in a F2P switch late in the game's lifespan). But then the gameplay loop is mostly...fine? It is fun. Kind of. Higher difficulties, Difficulty 6 and up), are far too punishing for people to enjoy regularly farming. Lower difficulties are far too easy to remain engaging. The sweet spot for most players will be difficulties 4 & 5, but those come with their own problems.
Most missions are best served by just avoiding combat. Don't fight anything. Just run to where you need, drop an orbital strike, repeat, extract. The high stress moments of epic firefights, daring escapes, exciting rescues just are never worth their effort. There's no multiplier for bugs you kill or specialty loot for taking down certain kinds of bugs or really any incentive at all to brawl with dropship after dropship of endless bots. It's not even like a Call of Duty: Zombies mode or even just a game like Project Zomboid where it's defined by failure. The goal being to see just how far you can get before it ends. In Helldivers 2 you can leave whenever you want, and are rewarded for doing so.
So why fight? Why engage with the game any deeper than it rewards you. Sure, maybe you'd do so just because you love the gameplay, but some fights are punishingly fruitless. The waves of superheavy enemies are endless and the mission & map variety is minimal. So you'll just requeue into doing the exact same thing. The emergent gameplay value and RNG is low so it's not like a Tarkov experience, it truly is more like Call of Duty where you know you'll go to this part at this point to get this thing to finish this mission. There's a solved puzzle in each map when you load in. There's little to discover.
Helldivers 2 is fun. Almost. It undoubtedly has a ton of potential. The galactic war uniting Helldivers players across the world is a lot of fun and the PvE nature creates a highly welcoming community. But there aren't even clans/squads/units or something that helps foster that community within game. Players are tuning to other social media (Reddit/TikTok/Facebook) to create those things. The gameplay is really fun for about 5 hours until you realize you've seen all there is to see and now you have to dig down into enjoying just that loop for the sake of that loop. Which is tough when there's no real sense of progression. It's not like a single player game where you're trying to complete the levels or grab the collectibles or finish the levels faster and faster to beat your best time. It's not like other multiplayer experiences where there's tons of things to find and unlock and different game modes to play and cosmetics to show off.
It's a very nearly fun game with not a lot of meat on the bone yet. And I assume that once people have had their fill and their friends stop playing, they will too. There's nothing to keep you here. And once that exodus begins, it won't stop. And the gameplay isn't even as deep as something like Diablo IV so there won't be anything to stem the bleeding. Without major changes, Helldivers 2 will be a ghost town in six months.
Here's hoping.