The first time my squad fought a Bile Titan was a disaster. We dropped into a hot zone full of Termanids, Helldivers 2’s alien bugs, and lost all of our extra lives before we even found the thing. We were running for the hills when we ran right into it instead: an absolutely massive, hulking bug that dripped (and spit) acid, easily towering over anything we’d seen so far. It took everything we had – bullets, airstrikes, orbital cannons, grenades, and more than a little luck – but we somehow managed to fell the beast and get the entire squad back onto our evac ship just as our position was about to be overrun. “I can’t believe we survived that,” one of my friends said. “Me neither,” I said. “Wanna go again?” Reader, we played for several more hours.
That’s the Helldivers 2 experience in a nutshell. It’s hilarious, smartly designed, and intense whether you’re playing solo, with a squad of other random Helldivers, or serving up a nice hot cup of Liber-tea across the galaxy with your buddies – though like most games of its type, Helldivers 2 is much, much better with friends. With varied missions, a huge catalog of weapons, emotes, armor, and abilities to unlock, and long-term campaigns against the bugs and Automatons (think Terminators) to fight in the name of Managed Democracy, Helldivers 2 has enough laughs, close shaves, and pure, unabashed fun to keep you busy for a long, long time. I’ve put more than 40 hours in since release, and I’m still enjoying traveling to exciting new places, meeting exotic life forms, and killing them for the glory of Super Earth.
Helldivers 2 doesn’t waste time getting you into the action. After a gut-busting opening piece of mandatory propaganda (refusal to pay attention is treason) which explains that Super Earth is under attack from the robotic Automatons and the “legally-distinct-but-still-totally-the-bugs-from-Starship-Troopers” Terminids (which are also definitely not Warhammer 40K’s Tyranids!), you’re dropped into Helldiver basic training. Your instructor tells you that he isn’t easily impressed… before letting you know how impressed he is by the fact that you’re not backing down.
After mercilessly gassing you up during one of the funniest tutorials I’ve ever played and telling you how invincible you are – while conveniently avoiding the fact that the average Helldiver has a lifespan of about, oh, I don’t know, 30 seconds – you earn your cape and are given command of your own Super Destroyer space ship (I named mine the Elected Representative of Family Values) and sent to the front lines with your buddies. Once you’re out in the Galactic War, you’re free to head to either the Automaton or Terminid front to bring Liberty and Managed Democracy to their occupied planets. Each world has multiple missions with multiple objectives, which range from destroying Termanid eggs to activating your local, nuclear-armed ICBM. Just a regular, glorious day at the office for your average Helldiver.
What’s nice is that every mission feels different, even if you’ve completed these same objectives before. That’s largely because maps are distinct and unique, even on the same planet, because of the way the terrain changes – one map might have a lot of water and hills, while another might be heavily forested or covered in snow. On top of that, each mission usually has a couple of optional objectives to complete, like blowing up outposts, loading a piece of artillery that you can use later, or terminating a treasonous broadcast. Combine that with bugs bursting up from underground to attack you without notice and robot dropships delivering reinforcements to the front lines at what always seems to be the worst possible time, and no two missions ever play out the same way.
You don’t start with a big selection of gear for your Helldiver (a couple of primary weapon options, a sidearm, and a grenade) but shooting is satisfyingly weighty, especially with the DualSense controller’s haptics. Plus, Helldivers 2 forces you to coordinate to succeed as a group – or play smart if you’re alone. You’re racing against the clock; if your mission timer hits zero, you won’t be able to call in more Stratagems – special abilities like orbital strikes, airstrikes from bombers, or additional weapons like the extremely powerful railgun and equipment like a mortar turret – and your squad has a limited number of Reinforcements (AKA extra lives), so you have to pick your priorities, manage your resources, and choose where to spend your time. It’s always challenging.
What makes Helldivers 2 cool, though, are the little touches that make sure you’re always thinking about how to manage those resources while hordes of bugs and robots throw themselves at your squad. Reloading, for instance, discards any remaining rounds you have in a clip; bullets don’t just teleport back into your inventory. Being accurate while aiming means you’ll need to go prone, crouch, or stand still. If your leg takes damage, you won’t be able to sprint, and if your arm is injured, you’ll be less accurate when firing your weapon. If you want to call down reinforcements, special weapons, or a resupply, you’ve got to rapid-fire a series of directional inputs on the d-pad, which can be a little challenging when you’re running from a horde of bugs hellbent on tearing your Helldiver limb from limb.
These abilities all have cooldown timers, forcing you to be careful about picking when to deploy them and how you coordinate with your teammates. If you die, you’ll want to go retrieve any equipment you’ve dropped because the ability to call that thing in might still be waiting for you on cooldown. It’s a risk, yeah, but there’s a big difference between having your Guard Dog “Rover” – a laser drone that orbits your Helldiver and takes out any enemies that get close – and not.
Helldivers 2 is also generous with the rewards that you can buy on your Super Destroyer between missions. Don’t have a cool weapon? You’ll probably find something fun to use temporarily during a mission, and then be able to afford a better gun of your own after a few rounds. One of my favorites is the Anti-Material Rifle, an anti-armor behemoth that lets you take on huge, bile-spewing bugs without ever getting close to them – and that’s handy because they can kill you in a single volley of acid if you do. And then there’s the Railgun, every Helldivers’ best friend. You simply point it at a problem, and the problem becomes a puddle at your feet.
In addition to weapons that are scattered throughout the level, there are sometimes special events that give a specific Stratagem to every Helldiver for a limited time, whether you have it unlocked or not. You don’t get to keep any weapons you find on the map once the mission ends, but finding them in missions or using them during those special events allows you to try them out before you permanently unlock them with the in-game currency you get from completing objectives, which is a nice touch.
Speaking of unlocking stuff, Helldivers 2 has a ton of goodies for you to earn. Yes, there’s a paid battle pass with lots of weapons and armor, but there’s also a free one with even more stuff than the paid one, and you can also unlock gear the old-fashioned way by simply completing missions. So while there are microtransactions, sure, thus far I’ve never felt like I was missing out on anything important by not going near them.
The free battle pass alone gives you almost enough Super Credits (Helldivers 2’s paid currency) to upgrade to the paid version, and you can find more during missions if you explore enough (though, unfortunately, unlike the other resources you can find in chests, Super Credits only seem to go to the one person who picks them up). The rest of the free battle pass is nothing to sneeze at, either. In addition to just having more stuff than the paid pass, it also sports what might be Helldivers 2’s best weapon: the Breaker, a fully automatic shotgun that shreds Termanids and Automatons alike. That’s not to say the premium battle pass doesn’t have cool exclusives – I love the Explosive Liberator, a high-powered version of the basic Liberator assault rifle – but you don’t need them to succeed. I’m deep into Helldivers 2’s progressions system at this point, and I still look forward to unlocking new stuff, which is pretty rare in the microtransaction-riddled modern world.
It should also be noted that the battle passes only offer weapons, armor, emotes, capes, cosmetic emblems, and Boosters (permanent upgrades that affect your entire squad when equipped). All of the in-game Stratagems can only be purchased with the in-game currency you earn by completing mission objectives. After you meet the minimum level required to purchase them, buying a Stratagem once will make it yours forever. The same goes for any ship upgrades you acquire for collecting samples scattered throughout missions.
Better still, a lot of these unlocks can make a huge difference in how you play. One of the first things I earned was the ability to call in a stationary turret that automatically blasts away. I found out the hard way that friendly fire is a thing and it can kill you if you stand in front of it, which makes for some really funny moments, but it’s a legitimate game-changer when you have to hold off a swarm of bugs or defend your extraction zone. I’ve since upgraded to the Mortar Sentry, which I never leave the Elected Representative of Family Values without.
Helldivers 2’s progression system remains impressive even at higher levels. You can unlock every Stratagem currently available at level 20, which took me somewhere around 30 hours to hit. Progression definitely slowed down as I got closer to that point, but levels still feel like they’re coming when I want them to, especially when I play at higher difficulties. Now I possess the almighty Railgun, and all enemies of Super Earth tremble before me.
If there’s a downside to this, it’s that there’s so much stuff to unlock that it’s tough to decide which things to get first. Should you save up for an airstrike, the Anti-Material Rifle, or a portable supply pack? Some, like the Eagle Airstrike or Mortar Sentry, are noticeably better than others – but again, none of those options are battle pass items so it’s not like it’s trying to trick you into spending money for something you don’t know if you’ll want. You get these just by playing. That might sound like faint praise, but in an era where so many games are trying to nickel and dime us for absolutely everything, the fact that Helldivers 2 doesn’t force you to deal with its battle pass to make your experience better feels awesome.
And you’ll need every Stratagem and ounce of teamwork you can muster to defeat the foes of Super Earth, as there’s a ton of enemy variety in Helldivers 2. Sure, there’s your standard-issue small bugs, but there are also bigger guys that spit acid at you, armored bugs that will charge you, bugs that can go invisible or leap great distances, the aforementioned Bile Titan – and that’s just the bugs. I haven’t even gotten to the robots with chainsaws for hands, or the heavily armored, flamethrower-sporting Hulks, or their honest-to-god battle tanks that will chase you as you run around their “totally-not-Space-Vietnam” themed planets. All that’s missing is Ride of the Valkyries and Fortunate Son.
Every encounter kept me on my toes, partly because every mission comes with a modifier that increases the prevalence of certain enemy types. Helldivers 2 forces you to plan a strategy, adapt to what happens in the moment, coordinate with your teammates, and think on the fly once things inevitably go wrong. And it’s as satisfying to pull off an improbable, come-from-behind victory as it is to “accidentally” blow up your friend with an airstrike.
If Helldivers 2 has any caveat, it’s that it kind of has to be played with friends to get the best possible experience. Yes, you can play alone, but none of the difficulty levels scale to your total player count, so you’ll only really have a chance in maybe the bottom third or so of the nine difficulty modes by yourself, which will slow your progression. And, as always, the quality of playing with random people in any online game is kind of a toss-up. When played with friends, though, Helldivers 2 sings.
That said, it has also had some performance issues around its launch, with iffy matchmaking at best, post-match rewards that don’t always go through, Helldivers randomly disconnecting from games, and friends being hard to join up with. In a couple games, my framerate resembled a PowerPoint presentation. My Helldiver even stopped running once; he just started levitating across the map. Funny? Absolutely, but not a good way to fight the foes of Super Earth. Thankfully these problems have gotten rarer as developer Arrowhead has upped server capacity and released patches, so I haven’t encountered as many issues recently, but they haven’t been 100% sorted out yet either.
The special thing about Helldivers 2, though, is just how much fun it is regardless. The greatest compliment I can give a game is when I want to keep playing it after I finish a review, and I know that I’m going to be playing Helldivers 2 for a long time. I love the way it delivers little pieces of lore through dialogue and funny propaganda videos broadcast on your Super Destroyer: did you know that the bugs were being farmed as fuel before they managed to escape, which is why they’re attacking Super Earth? Or that the Automatons were previously enslaved? I mean, for the love of God, members of the Super Earth military literally wear capes! Leaving a bad review of military hardware is treason! We might be the baddies!
So, yeah, you’re fascists, but it’s all so intentionally over the top that it’s impossible not to smile. Helldivers 2 has my regular squad and I shouting things like “Looks like those robots could use some freedom” and “How about a nice cup of Liber-tea?!” while we’re playing. I can’t stop laughing whenever my Helldiver’s limb is damaged and they scream “Sweet Liberty! My ARM!”, or an airstrike turns them into nothing but a bloody torso wearing a cape, or when they start laughing maniacally when I empty an entire machinegun clip in one go. I love that death means you get a new Helldiver with a new voice, and you lose any waypoints you’ve set on the map. There are so many little touches in Helldivers 2 that make it special, and you’ll notice and appreciate them constantly.