Helldivers 2 Single Player Review

Everyone has reasons for why they don’t have a regular squad all the time to game with and whatever that reason is, it’s not fun to miss out on amazing experiences, just because some games aren’t single player exclusive. Helldivers 2 doesn’t offer a single player mode or a campaign, but is it still fun in single player?

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Helldivers 2 isn’t like Remnant 2, Diablo 4, or the upcoming Windblown, which are games that work perfectly fine in either solo or co-op. Let’s make it very clear, Helldivers 2 is an always online, squad game first, but the good news is there its still lots of fun to be had spreading democracy in single player. That is as long as you are aware of some of the concessions you might need to make and tips that will make things better, which we will get to.

Is Helldivers 2 worth it Solo?

The good news is that Helldivers 2 feels a lot more manageable in solo than Helldivers did back when it was isometric in 2015.

The bad news is that the addition of ai squad-mates, the feature that I was hoping for the most coming to the sequel, didn’t get added. This would have filled the need for many opportunities. Maybe you want to jump on for one quick game before making dinner and don’t have the time to message the squad, but even more important is when matchmaking fails you. Sometimes, the game doesn’t completely fill your squad to four, which can be detrimental to survival, but even more severe is when one or more teammates drops out in the middle of a match. Depending on difficulty level, this makes finishing the mission, exponentially harder which could lead to a waste of nearly an hour in some cases.

Getting back on track, the first step to solo play is to go to social options and change matchmaking preference from public to friends only. This will allow mission selection and the ability to drop in solo.

Helldivers 2 single player drawbacks

Let’s talk about some of the concessions that need to be made. There are a lot of different difficultly levels, but playing on solo, you likely won’t be able to go above medium, at least for a while and even at medium, you still need to have lots of patience and luck to succeed. This isn't a huge sacrifice as playing on medium or lower is still loads of fun and leads to some nail biting finales.

Leveling up is going to be harder for a few reasons. You likely won’t have time to finish all secondary objectives, due to not having the ability for the squad to divide and conquer. Trying to accomplish the primary objective should keep your hands full and you should only approach secondary after finishing the primary and then evaluating your time and lives left.

The downside of not getting additional objectives, will be less XP rewards. The other downside for levelling, is that playing in squad, you get bonus XP for each Helldiver successfully extracted. It would have been great if it was based on percentage of Helldivers extracted, but maybe that could come in a future patch. No matter the case, these are just a few reasons that you will be getting less XP per mission. On average when playing solo on medium difficultly the XP reward is usually around 200, and when playing in a squad, that number almost doubles.

Lives need to monitored closer when playing in solo. There are only have 5 redeploys compared to 20 when playing in a squad. No longer is there a safety blanket in the form of pooled lives. Only having a small amount of lives, requires smarter decisions and also ratchets up the tension. The decision to extract or pursue another objective will always be weighing on the mind.

You can also say goodbye to heavy weapons that require two people to reload or hidden bunkers that have bonus currency and weapons because it requires two people to simultaneously push a button.

HELLDIVERS 2 SOLO PLAY TIPS

Gear will make a big difference for trying to play Helldivers in solo. Leaning on stratagems that can provide extra defence or firepower to compensate for lack of squad-mates will be essential. At level 10, the guard dog backpack stratagem becomes available for addition to the arsenal. There are a few different ones and unlocking one of these backpack strategems will provide close range drone support should be an extremely high priority. It also would make sense to focus on ship upgrades that reduce the cooldown of backpack stratagems.

As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Treat playing Helldivers 2 like a tower defence, where planning is the key. Focus on unlocking stratagems that will help prepare for the enemy forces, like Sentry Turrets as these will make a much bigger difference compared to an air strike that could be thrown in a panic and miss the target completely (not speaking from experience). There are also ship upgrades that improve sentries to be aware of

It is also a good idea to try and select missions that will provide the best opportunity for success. There are missions where venturing out is required and this provides some slight control over how hectic the situation might become. In comparison, there are defend missions, which are similar to horde mode and with just a few unlucky events, these can quickly get out of hand. Success is still possible, but they are less opportune. In regards to mission selection, currently there are two enemy factions in Helldivers 2: The Automatons (robots) and The Terminids (Bugs). It’s not fact, but the bug missions just feel slightly easier, so take that into account, and consider prioritizing those missions.

Solo play in Helldivers 2 also requires a keen eye on armor bonuses. Some body armor can provide better stamina or speed, which can come in handy when the situation gets too hectic and you need to escape quickly. The choice for heavier defence is also there, but it’s important to maximize stats depending on play style. This wouldn’t be as important in a squad, when extra squad members could compensate for less than optimal builds.

HELLDIVERS 2 SOLO REview

Although the challenge will be much higher, with the right amount of planning, patience and understanding, there is lots of fun to be had playing Helldivers 2 in single player. There will be sacrifice for certain things including bonus XP, hilarious moments between squad-mates and certain weapons, but if that isn’t a bother, then Helldivers 2 is one of the funnest experiences of 2024 and is worthy of picking up for solo play.