Typically the sorts of games I write about are ones with a pretty clear beginning and end, so it's easy for me to know when I'm done with it. Thus if I want to write about it, when it's the time to do so. Even in the realm of ongoing games, Destiny 2 has campaigns with conclusions to them (also usually I don't really have enough to say about those for individual write-ups). I think technically even Fortnite's Save the World campaign has an end...but despite playing a lot of it (and having a lot of fun!), my friend and I never got close to its end.

Helldivers II, though, fittingly, doesn't have anything like that. It doesn't even have a traditional “campaign” in the video game sense of the word. There's no scripted story, no cutscenes, or really even characters. Not counting the pre-rendered opening or tutorial, I guess. As good as those are for setting the tone, it's not like there's a rich narrative there, or like General Brasch is anything more than a loud mouth meant to again, set the tone.

That tone, let me be honest, is just Starship Troopers, but...better? Not to just make this about that movie instead of the game I want to write about, but it's one of those movies where I get the satire, and all that...but I still don't think it's a good movie. Like, even if it was all done intentionally, bad acting and unlikable characters are still bad and unlikable. And that's fine! I don't have to like it! I can get the point of something and still not personally enjoy it.

Where that movie doesn't work (again, for me), but Helldivers II does is in it going for an entirely different type of storytelling, one that really only works in video game form. No, it doesn't have a “story” in the traditional sense, but there's still a narrative at play here. Or, several, if I want to get into the nitty gritty of it.

For anyone who played the original, but hasn't had a chance to try II (which seems doubtful considering how well II has sold), it's effectively the same set up. The brave people of Super Earth are besieged on all sides by the vile forces of the outer reaches of the galaxy, and the only thing standing between their evil way of life and our glorious Managed Democracy are the Helldivers.

It's the same sense of humor, using satirical fascism to get laughs (it's funny in game!), and set up a perpetual war with different fronts across the galaxy. Those fronts move forward and back depending on how well players across the world are doing on individual planets, and the plans of Game Master Joel at Arrowhead. Planets become available for missions depending on if they either need Liberation, or Defending from enemy forces, but there's also Major Orders for specific fronts, or planets.

The Major Orders are the closest thing to “main story objectives” in the game, and are Joel's way of guiding players along the loose narrative he and the rest of Arrowhead have planned. When the game launched the focus was on the scourge of insectoid Terminids, but after a brazen attack by the nefarious communist Automatons, the main front moved to the other side of the galaxy. Yet, and this is the nature of these sorts of live games, literally the day before I was going to post this, the Major Order shifted back to the bugs, and I had to edit this in! I'm sure the main front will shift countless times in the future, but I just thought it was really funny to have this happen right before I was going to post this.

There's been hints of another faction rearing its head (the original game had three after all), so I'm sure more is to come in the future. Reading up about how Joel is dynamically adjusting the flow of the war based on how well players are doing (such as making the Automatons attack after the bugs were pushed back faster than expected), just makes me more excited about the future of this game. Yes, there's probably something to be said that maybe the pushback was a little too much with the Automatons and defending planets, but the game is still less than a month old. And hey, Joel threw us a softball with this latest bug one, so the devs are paying attention. What this game is a year from now might be wildly different than it is now.

And that's part of why I wasn't really sure when would be the best time to write about this game. Now, when it's new and fresh, and EVERYONE is playing it? Or a year from now when it's changed, and more has happened? What if I've given up playing it by then?

Or, more likely...haven't had the chance to play it as much as I want because...well...

When this game first launched, it was more or less just the people like myself who liked the original who were playing the sequel. Playing with friends on launch day, we were having a great time, because it was all the stuff that was cool about the original, but from a new perspective, and a redesigned core game play that was even better than I remembered from the first game.

But, as the next week or so went by, word spread about how great the game is, and more and more people started playing. Soon it far exceeded what the developers at Arrowhead expected, and they had to do things like implement a queue to play at all, and work overtime on weekends to expand the server capacity to let as many people play as possible.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled so many people are playing this game. It's fantastic, and I could not be happier for the people at Arrowhead. Too many great games don't find the audience they deserve, especially when they need it because they're multiplayer.

The problem is as more people started playing, my gaming friends all seem to be playing it, almost nonstop for at least one of them, it's just...they've all gotten other friend groups to play it with. So any time I turn on my PS5 to play my silly little Hawai'i JRPG with Ichiban and the power of friendship...I see my friends online playing Helldivers II. Without me.

So, that was, to say the least, frustrating. No one likes to be left out, right? It's not like I feel the need to play it nonstop like that one friend of mine, but I also didn't want to completely give up on playing the game, not like I had to do with Deep Rock Galactic (my poor Rock and Stone dwarves...alone and drunk in space). Not when I actually spent money on this one! The answer, it seems...is in...gasp, making new friends! Or, at the very least, making use of the Discord server I joined a year ago to do some Destiny raiding in to play with some of them. Some of which (well, two) were my friends prior to joining that server, so that helps with my inherent shyness.

This plan seems to be going all right! I'm not sure that I'm forging any long lasting friendships or anything, but it's good to have people I can play with, and use voice chat with. And if I end up making a genuine friend or two along the way, then all the better.

Anyway, how about I actually get into what makes this game so good? Well, like I said earlier, it's more or less the same structure as the first Helldivers. That, however, was a top down/overhead game with dual-stick controls. IE, one stick to move, the other stick aimed in a circle around your Helldiver. It was a lot of fun, and felt pretty unique at the time, more so because of the structure than the core game play. Even from that perspective, it was a dual-stick game in 2015, which was long after the heyday of that genre. Those types of games will always be fun, I'm sure Geometry Wars will be just as thrilling decades from now as it was when it was new. You just don't see them as often as you used to.

Curiously, Arrowhead hadn't put out any other games in the nine years between Helldivers I and II. I have no insider knowledge, I don't know if they used all that time on this sequel, or if they spent a few years on other prototypes that didn't come together, but genuinely Helldivers II feels like a game that was in development for nine years...in a good way! My biggest concern going into II was the change in perspective. Arrowhead had only made top down games before (well upon checking to make sure, they made a sidescroller too), so going to an over the shoulder perspective felt like it could be a recipe for disaster.

Instead, it feels great! Not only that, but it has a slew of options to adjust various sensitivities and whatnot, so if it isn't to someone's liking, they can adjust it until it is. Not only does it just feel good to move and aim in this game, but they also made it feel different than just about anything else I've played? So, this game has a reticle that moves wherever the player aims it, but reticle speed is not the same as the actual turn speed of the Helldiver. That varies depending on what weapon is equipped, and is signified (when aiming) with a separate circle that shows more accurately where the gun is actually going to shoot. For example, a light pistol is going to be snappy and quick to turn, with pretty light recoil, but a bigh machine gun will take longer to move, and have much heavier recoil, so if you aren't careful, you could end up wildly shooting all over the place.

It sounds weird in writing, but it works in practice. That, the more limited nature of ammo (with realistic reloading where ammo from the magazine is LOST), and the heavy friendly fire makes this a game where you need to be much more deliberate with every action than most games. Especially co-op ones. I've played well over a thousand hours of Destiny 2 over the years (yeesh, haha), but I never feel like I need to be careful there. Or if I do, during more difficult content, that's only being careful about myself. I had fun playing through Suicide Squad a few weeks ago with a friend, but there's no actual “cooperating” in the game's mechanics, other than reviving someone if they're downed.

Helldivers II didn't invent friendly fire, and heck, I genuinely think the quantity of “accidentals” is significantly reduced from the first game, because of the change of perspective. Halo had friendly fire way back in the day, but that mostly amounted to just making sure you said “nade” when throwing a grenade. Listen, we were teens who liked saying “nade;” it was the style at the time.

The point I'm working toward is that Helldivers II is a cooperative game the likes of which isn't that common these days. If you're playing with other people, you need to coordinate, otherwise you're going to either be overrun by enemies, or blowing each other up left and right. And honestly, sometimes both of those happen even when you DO coordinate, yet it's still fun!

This is a game where almost any time you wonder how big the radius of an explosion, or anything with a radius is going to be, it's larger than you think. One of the first missions I played, my friend blew me up with a grenade that was, “nowhere near you!” Hellbombs are specialty explosives that need to be manually armed before detonation (because of budget cuts), and the first time you see one go off in game, it's so big all you can do is laugh! It's absurd! Yet somehow half the time we end up placing them wrong and miss the one thing we need to actually destroy for the objective, and have to either call in a second, or use some other ordinance to get the job done.

I also need to take a moment to just describe how great the explosions in this game are. Obviously, many video games have a lot of explosions, and many of them are very good. But there's just something about the way every bit of Helldivers II comes together that makes them feel special. The booming sound effects, the billowing smoke, screen shake, the rumble in the controller, the flashes of light so bright they light up the whole screen even when you're running away from them, they all feel perfectly tuned. The way that trees, small buildings, and other things blow apart! Plus, the nature of the game, with how hectic it can get, it's extremely easy to get just a little too close to them without realizing it.

To be fair, I've accidentally taken out Helldivers with poorly placed cluster bombs, or not realizing just how long the 380 MM orbital barrage goes for. Or my mortar turret going after enemies a bit too close to us (it's happened to me with my own mortar!). I've also been scarred by the Tesla coils, with a range always just longer than I think it is, and an instant kill when I stray too close. That's one of those items that I refuse to unlock myself because I just know it won't go well.

Some items I wasn't sure if I wanted to unlock or not, until getting a little extra push from a friend. One of them is the recoilless rifle, which despite looking like a rocket launcher, after doing some research (skimming a Wikipedia article) I realized it is technically a rifle. It's big, and requires a backpack to carry extra ammo for. You can carry the backpack yourself, and use a long reload animation after every shot...but if someone else carries the backpack, then they can reload it in a fraction of the time. It turns the recoilless rifle from a useful, but slow weapon into something that shoots so fast it's kind of ridiculous.

Of course the trade off is that then you're dedicating two people to firing one weapon, and the second person isn't even doing anything after they've locked in to reloading. The strategy then becomes when is it good to lock in to each other, or do you just want to use the rifle whenever, and get a reload when the other person is free for a moment? But you gotta be careful, because the rifle is only recoilless for the person using it All that force gets pushed behind them, and it will literally blow people over and knock them down if they're caught in its wake. We've had times where the reloader was about to lock in, but was swept away by all that force.

There's other weapons like this in the game too. The autocannon I've grown to really like, though the self reload on that is short enough that I typically carry the ammo myself. There's a third one I forget the name of, but it's a heavy missile launcher that locks onto large targets, like tanks. Sadly, it didn't seem very good when I tried it? It takes too long to lock on, and if there's multiple targets nearby, it has a bad habit of almost locking onto one, then switching to the other, and ultimately not locking onto anything. That wouldn't be too bad if it was taking out Automaton Hulks in one hit, but it couldn't even manage that, so I'm glad I didn't unlock it, that was my friend (who I think has everything unlocked already) who took that hit.

If there's any complaint to be laid against the game, it sounds like the progression gets grindy at a point. I'm not there yet, I'm just going off the word of my friend who has put in over three times more time into the game than I have, but from what she was saying about the numbers, it does seem out of whack. But it is an ongoing game, and they've already changed the rewards for the most recent Major Order from Requisitions points to Medals (the thing my friend was saying they should do), so I had to edit this again to account for that!

In the heat of the moment though, Helldivers II is fantastic. When I said this game feels like it was in development for nine years, I mean things like how exquisitely balanced it feels. It always manages to strike the right balance at just the right moments to push us, make us feel like we're up against the wall, but then manage to scrape by and pull out a victory. Yes, often at the cost of brave Helldivers sacrificing themselves to serve these cups of Liber-Tea, but what war is won without sacrifice?

Helldivers II has nine different difficulties, ranging from Trivial to Helldive. The highest one I've completed full Operations on is Hard, which fittingly...is exactly in the middle of them. I've managed to do one mission on Extreme (one up from Hard), but that was a case where while we managed to complete the objectives...we were not able to extract. It was only two of us, and we were at the extraction point, but ran out of reinforcements before the ship arrived. If the extraction timer had been the usual two minutes instead of four, we would have made it out, but sadly not. I dunno if that was a weird mission modifier, or if that's just the case on difficulties harder than Hard, but it...was brutal. Yet, still surmountable! We almost made it out.

That's the whole game, everything is doable, if you and your squad are well equipped, and put in some coordination. Thankfully you need to unlock the difficulties as you go, actually completing Operations (sets of missions) on a difficulty to unlock the next one, and so on. It lets the game ramp things up, and get you used to it before introducing stronger enemy types, and more complex objectives. And unlock more gear, and stratagems to be better equipped.

The one part of this game where Arrowhead's Magicka roots show is the stratagems. Whether it's calling in resupplies, air strikes, orbital barrages, support weapons, or even reinforcements (respawns for your squadmates), you gotta use stratagems. Just like the first game, these are like fighting game combos on the d-pad, which then creates a thingy you throw like a grenade to call in whatever it is. When you first start a mission (assuming you didn't drop directly into danger), it's easy to leisurely put in the combos and call your support weapon, backpack item, etc. When you're being besieged by five giant bugs all spitting acid at you, or hiding behind a small rock from rocket barrage robots, and you're desperately trying to put in the combo for the right air strike, and then have to throw it at where the enemies will be by the time the strike actually comes, it's a bit more stressful!

It's exactly the right kind of stressful though. And the funny part is, this is exactly the same as it was in the first game, but something about the change in perspective, and much, MUCH larger scale of this game makes it work perfectly. The levels are all procedurally generated, but they're big enough and spread out enough that even when you're doing multiple Operations in a row on a single planet, they feel different enough every time.

That's another thing that makes this game feel like a huge amount of time was put into it, there's been a bunch of different planets in just the first month of play, and there's not only some good variety in them, but there's so much more detail in them than I expected from a $40 game. Some of it's just graphical flourishes like really good shafts of light between trees, but other stuff like a dynamic time of day system? I'm not kidding, when picking missions from the map screen (which has a good faux-Mass Effect galaxy map theme), each planet has its rotation, and day and night. A mission might start in night, but slowly turn to day as it goes on, or vice versa.

Speaking of, all the missions have a time limit, and most are forty minutes, though some are closer to twelve or fifteen. It might feel restrictive, but part of the overall progression is finding research samples to extract, and use to upgrade each players' ship. Those are actually the only thing that needs to be extracted. As I said earlier, a mission will still be listed as victory if no Helldivers extract, so long as the objectives were completed. It might be a mournful victory instead of glorious, but a victory is still a victory. Those samples though? You gotta get them on the Pelican, and off the planet. I think there's also bonuses for players actually extracting, so you still want to try to do it. Anyway, point being, if there weren't time limits, players could just casually loot the whole zone for everything, but the limit forces at least a little urgency.

Hitting the time limit doesn't instantly end the mission either, but it does mean the ship leaves low orbit, and takes all the support it provides with it. That means no orbital barrages, no resupplies, and no reinforcements if anyone dies. I'm not sure if the Eagle (the plane that provides air support) goes too, but it wouldn't be able to go back to reload its weapons, so it probably goes too.

I don't think I need to go into detail about how it feels to get down to the last seconds, and just barely extract while being swarmed by enemies. I should mention how great the music is, and how perfectly timed to everything it is. Builds up during the action, but settles down when just exploring planets, and there's nothing going on.

Really though, the best use is dropping down to the planets. You see the Hellpods streaking through the atmosphere, hear this huge swell of the main theme, while reading a funny loading screen tip that's somehow synced up so everyone sees the same thing. Just an immaculate game from top to bottom.

Like, anyone reading this, if you want a game to play with friends, I cannot recommend Helldivers II enough. I play a good amount of co-op games, but a lot of them are fun in the moment, yet ultimately forgettable. That, or playing with a friend doesn't really change the experience that much, you're just giving yourself someone to chat with while you play a game alongside them.

Helldivers II is different. Not wholly unique, in many ways it's just a refinement of the first game. Playing Helldivers II with friends requires genuine cooperation and coordination, and because of that, it's quickly become one of my favorites in the co-op “genre.” Hopefully I can find the right groove of playing this one often enough to sate my need. It'd be a real bummer if I get to the end of the year and my primary thought on this game is, “I just wish I'd played more.”

It's fantastic. Tremendous fun, and funny both from the in game satire, but mostly from the hijinks that happen in the course of play. If nothing else, hopefully I can at least play enough to experience all the big moments. To see how the never-ending war for freedom and Managed Democracy goes. And see what gets added, because when the psychic aliens from the first game come back, I can only imagine the horrors in store for us, haha. Hopefully we'll have mechs to combat them!

Until then, brave Helldivers, remember: DEMOCRACY, and LIBER-TEA!