Helldivers 2 Review
Helldivers 2 Review
Review code provided by PlayStation
The last time a high profile PlayStation published game got a huge glow up was with Housemarque and their release of Returnal in 2021. It was the studios first time moving into the AAA space and the results were incredible to say the least.
It took everything great that Housemarque was known for and then welded It onto a premium experience with a fantastic story and even better gameplay. It’s hard not to see the same parallels with Arrowhead and their followup to their 2015 cult hit, Helldivers.
The big question is can Helldivers 2 also make the jump from the indie stage to headliner?
Helldivers 2 doesn’t feel like quite the same giant leap for PlayStation that Returnal felt like from Housemarque, but that’s a very high bar and one of the arguably, one of the best PS5 games. Helldivers 2 understood the assignment: focus on your strengths and graft it onto something bigger, while keeping the essence intact and in that way, Helldivers 2 is a massive success.
Helldivers 2 still features the same satirical tone about patriotism from the first combined with the satisfying bug blasting and friendly fire that can’t be turned off, which is good because that became Helldivers unique selling point. However, the biggest and most obvious change is that Helldivers 2 has moved away from the arcade style, isometric perspective and is now a third person action game with everything about the first becoming larger than life.
Unexpected
This transition to third person has not only given the game a massive visual overhaul, but has made the environment its own character as well. The environment plays a much a vital role in every aspect of the game as you can now traverse up and down (with limited ability), but the terrain also needs to be taken into account. Dangers now include deep snow and mud, that make escaping a giant beetle much harder along with things like the sun that can now be blinding depending on which direction you are defending.
The vital role that environment plays in Helldivers 2 was not something that was expected and now allows for a much more strategic approach to missions, but it also leads to a lot more emergent gameplay. Running away from danger only to find even more danger the other side of the hill you were circling or trying to throw that grenade up a hill only for it to bounce the wrong way and decimate your squad happen on a higher frequency. Moments and stories like this become a lot more common place and can lead to a lot more memories with your squad that can become fishing stories down the road.
Not for the faint of heart or solo
At its core Helldivers is a multiplayer game, that unfortunately still lacks a meaningful plot that could’ve helped to give the game some longer legs and it’s still not targeted to the solo player. In the early stages the game does feel more playable in solo, but in the blink of an eye, no matter how cautiously you have been, everything can be undone.
The feature I wanted to see added to the sequel the most was ai teammates that would make the game more accessible for the solo player. Ai teammates not only would have made it fun for solo players who just don’t want to matchmake sometimes and have to deal with everything that comes along with it, but it also could have been good for the times when people either quit mid mission or get disconnected. When this happens the odds against you exponentially rise, possibly leading to a 40 minute mission being washed down the drain.
Matchmaking could also use some quality of life fixes at the moment because if you matchmake and become the host then the only way to go back to solo is to either kick everyone out, one by one, or quit the game and reboot. It was also easier to find games to join in the first game by being able to search active parties and joining which ones you wanted to.
It is still fairly early but hopefully, Arrowhead can incorporate more variety into the missions. Most of the current missions are only on a few planets, and most of the missions have a timer of 40 minutes. Life gets busy sometimes and it would be nice to have more missions with shorter times for the nights that you just want to drop in for some quick fun.
Just like the original, there are a lot of carrots dangling back at the ship and multiple currencies for you to manage, which has become the standard for persistent online games. Warbonds, Super Credits, Samples are just a few of the currencies that you need to acquire, but none are required to purchase as just playing the game and completing missions will reward you. How much of a grind these feel like depends on how much fun you are having.
IS HELLDivers 2 GOOD?
Helldivers 2 is an easy recommend for people who have a regular squad to dive into hell as the experience when you are playing with buddies compared to playing solo or with randoms is like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Arrowhead manages to perfectly walk the tightrope again between between fun and being overwhelmed.
The visual overhaul, along with the return of meaty audio, and the introduction of dual sense integration all work in the tandem to create a strong sense of immersion that always gets your blood pumping when you have no more redeploy markers, your down to your last mag, waiting for your evac ship and a giant bug is barreling towards you. The Helldivers experince still feels as unique today as it did in 2015