HELLDIVERS 2

Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios
Publisher: PlayStation PC
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC (Reviewed)
Release Date: 8 Feb 2024
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here $64.95 AUD – Available Here

Overview

Game development is not easy, we all know that by now. Especially if we compare it to how things were 10-15 years ago. The stakes are now higher, the budget is way bigger, you need a publisher most of the time, a good PR campaign, and so on. You have to be brave to release something, to put your trust in some product you wholeheartedly believe in, and even then you’re not 100% sure it will leave a mark or turn a profit.

So how should we call developers that change the genre of their IP halfway through releases? Crazy, insane, inexplicably brave? I don’t know, you be the judge. To be fair, it is an infrequent occurrence but it happens now and then. For example, Yakuza: Like A Dragon turned out to be a big genre departure by making itself a turn-based brawler and somehow it worked! So how does all of that relate to HELLDIVERS 2? Read on, because you’re in for quite a ride.

Story

It is evident how the sequel draws a lot from the iconic Starship Troopers movie. Patriotically imbued PR videos will make you enlist and become one of the helldivers in the blink of an eye, but what is it that you do? You’re one of the elite Earth soldiers (in a team of 4) taking on assignments across the galaxy and decimating alien life or as they say in the game – bringing them some “managed democracy”. As of right now, we have two main fronts in our galaxy, the one with automatons, bots/robots (however you decide to call them) on one end and the oversized alien bogs on the other.

Gameplay

So what’s different about the sequel? Uhh, a whole lot. First, it’s not a co-op twin-stick shooter anymore but a co-op third-person shooter. And you know what, it works! I like the new point of view, our new spaceship hub for operation planning, new weapons, and new stratagems. Ooh, let’s talk about stratagems! To give you some upper hand, aside from the usual weapons arsenal (primary, secondary, and a grenade) you also can call for support from your mothership. Now that support can be a strong orbital strike that will obliterate everything where you throw the support beacon, a jet carpet bomb attack, an automated turret support, supplies support, and so on. Every single one of those stratagems has a cooldown and the stronger it is, the cooldown is usually longer.

Now, the factions. Each of them has weak points and gimmicks to make your life harder. The robot faction is susceptible to standard auto weapons (rifles, machineguns, grenades) while they are durable to fire and melee. On the other hand, the bug faction is weak to fire but it will take a lot more bullets to take them down, especially on higher difficulties. So what’s the incentive to play anything on higher difficulty then? Well, after every completed mission you’re rewarded with some medals and higher difficulty means more medals. You use them to unlock various weapons, armor sets, and cosmetics for your helldiver. You can also upgrade ship modules that will give you things such as faster stratagem deployments, more support ammo, and so on. What’s great is that most of those resources you can find by exploring the planets you’ve just been dropped on doing the side objectives. Every planet/mission has a couple of hidden objectives that you need to engage in by exploring the area thoroughly.

The last burning question is how do you progress in this game? This being a live service game means the progress is a bit tricky. Doing various missions over and over again will earn you enough medals to unlock new armor sets and weapons but the progress is global. A joint, collaborative effort. By playing together with all you increase the liberation percentage of the planet until it is eventually fully liberated (and that is usually followed by some big reward for you in the form of credits and such). Again, this being a live service game means that sometimes you’ll have to experience surprise attacks by factions and defend the assigned planet with others.

Visuals

A new genre switch also means a new visual switch. In this case, it was a good change since the new perspective makes the game far more immersive and engaging. And even since this is a third-person shooter every weapon has a first-person switch so if you want you can play it completely in the first-person as soon as you land on a planet. What makes this game stand out in terms of visuals is the creativity poured into different planets or should I say – different biomes. You’ll have deep forest planets (where the running is a bit harder since the foliage will slow you down), planets with hard weather conditions, and barren and desolated planets filled only with alien life and almost nothing else.

Things get even more fun once you realize you can use some stratagems (like orbital strikes) to decimate the buildings and fortifications and only then you can see just how much of the environment is destructible. I mean, why even go up close when you can decimate enemies with orbital lasers and carpet bombing before they even realize you’re watching them from afar.

Audio

Let me tell you about the music here. It elevates everything to a new level, especially if we compare it to a previous game. The hyped-up orchestra as we descend onto a planet is sure to give you a short adrenaline nudge no matter how many times you replay the missions. The weapon arsenal has some distinct sounds that are so detailed that eventually, you’ll be able to distinguish the machine guns by sound alone when you hear your teammates using them far far away.

Team communication and listening around is something you’ll have to incorporate later on, especially on higher difficulties. You don’t want to be around once your teammate calls an orbital strike or shooting at the enemies when they’re in the line of fire. Remember, friendly fire is nothing to joke about in this game and if you’re not paying attention you can do more damage to your buddies than any other enemy.

Overall

In the end, HELLDIVERS 2 is an experiment that gave some pretty good results. A gamble that paid off. It feels fun playing the sequel in a whole different way and this being a sole co-op game where you have to work together with your team members means that toxicity is down to an absolute minimum and pretty much nonexistent. And we’re just getting started, who knows what kind of invasions, events, and new content awaits us down the line. In any case, I’m all here for it and I’ll see you all on the battlefield.

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