By Aaquib Abdullah
It’s no secret that the AAA games industry has been on the decline in the last few years, due in no small part to the normalization of games as a live service—artificially lengthening the life span of an online game by introducing things such as seasonal battle passes which reward players for playing the game with in-game items that are only available for a period of time, to microtransactions which exchange real life currency to unlock content without having to play the game itself.
While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with live service games by themselves—it’s a fantastic way of ensuring that a game can keep its player base engaged for years after release—the problem lies mainly in how maliciously these live service games peddle their microtransactions. Games like Diablo IV, Honkai: Star Rail, Grand Theft Auto Online and Genshin Impact, though all enjoyable in their own rights, are undeniably designed around their microtransactions first and foremost. They want—no, need—you to buy their premium currencies, to level up your characters or to unlock the shiniest new skin. If you’ve got enough money to spare, you can skip the boring (and unprofitable) part of playing the game altogether, and just buy your way to the top.
Though these practices are soulless, they are undeniably effective. Which is why Arrowhead Game Studios Helldivers 2 is such a breath of fresh air in such a stagnant market.
Helldivers 2, much like the first Helldivers, is a 4-person Player vs. Environment game which sees you fighting for ‘Super Earth’, a satiric take on a fascist and overwhelmingly militaristic future human society, against a variety of enemy factions such as ‘mindless’ bugs and ‘socialist’ automatons who wage an endless war against humanity.
If it wasn’t obvious by the excessive air quotes, there’s a lot more to the story than meets the eye. Helldivers takes its cues from satirical military fiction like Starship Troopers and Aliens. Underneath the bravado and fanfare lies a fascinating story that is better experienced than told.
When it comes to gameplay, Helldivers 2 has one of the most comfortable combat systems of the last few years. The guns are punchy, with each shot thundering with power and authority; the movement is quick, responsive, and easy to master. Which is good, because Helldivers 2 does not pull its punches when it comes to its enemies.
From the moment you drop into a mission, you will be outnumbered and easily overwhelmed. Both enemy factions have a variety of enemies most of whom require teamwork and tactics to bring down, and dying is all but a certainty. Thankfully, when you die and respawn, you have the chance to angle your drop-pods to crush your enemies underfoot as you land.
Each fight feels frenetic and cinematic as you’re forced to dive out of the way of claws, corrosive acid, missiles and lasers as you gun down your enemies by the dozen, and the stratagem mechanic allows you to even the odds even further by calling in things like airstrikes and sentries from above with a little Dance Dance Revolution-esque matching arrows mini-game which is absolutely pulse-pounding when you’re surrounded on all sides and trying desperately to call down reinforcements.
After eighty odd hours of playing, there’s no boredom to be seen. If anything, Helldivers 2 engaged me in a way very few games have in years, and is absolutely worth the price tag.
And when it comes to its live service elements, Helldivers has the most consumer-friendly microtransaction system in the genre. For one, the premium currency can easily be found in the missions, to the point where you can unlock the premium battle pass within days. Second, there is absolutely no way for players to buy their way to the top. All unlocks are based on medals either found in missions or received at the end. The only way to unlock everything is to play the game itself. And finally, there are no seasonal battlepasses. Every pass is permanent, and players will be able to unlock everything regardless of when they play. The microtransactions exist solely as a way for the players to be able to directly support the developers.
Helldivers 2‘s customer friendly approach is definitely a notable success. Despite the forty dollar price tag, it sold over 4 million copies in the first month alone according to Steamspy. It sold so much that the developers, whose last game only had 6,000 concurrent players at its peak, were unable to keep up with the traffic as over 500,000 people across both PC and PS5 were trying to play at once.
Thankfully, the server issues have since been fixed, and the game has found its footing. If you’re looking for a fun game to play with your friends, Helldivers 2 brings a helluva bang for its buck.
Helldivers 2 is available both on PC and PlayStation 5.
