Helldivers 2 brings a whole new fight for freedom on Playstation and PC this week, delivering a sequel that goes above and beyond the original. Arrowhead Game Studios brings us back to Super Earth to once again fight for Democracy in third-person over-the-shoulder action. But how does Helldivers 2's gameplay and story live up to its predecessor? Let's find out in this Helldivers 2 Review!

Helldivers 2 Review – What Is Helldivers 2?

Helldivers 2 is an online third-person shooter and sequel to the original top-down shooter from 2015. It launched for both PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam, released in two separate editions. While the game is online, players can also opt to play solo for their experience.

Helldivers 2 Review – Story

Helldivers 2's story is a fun, over-the-top, and perfect for the kind of game it wants to be. I'm sure you've heard all about how this game resembled the cult classic film Starship Troopers, which released back in 1997. Helldivers 2 puts you in the shoes of your every day frontline fighters instead of the overpowered super soldiers with enhanced abilities. Your objective, to defend Super Earth via competing various missions across the galaxy and assisting the war effort.

The game starts off with a hilarious promo video encouraging people to join the war effort and defend Earth. Peace and Liberty don't come free, so it's up to you destroy those who oppose human freedom. Your two enemies in this entry include the Terminids, who resemble the Bugs from the first game. A brand new enemy, the Automaton, make for a much for fierce adversary than the Illuminate.

After a brief and hilarious training session, you're just given command of your own ship. I love how Super Earth just trusts you enough to commandeer a whole vessel after just one training session, which just adds to the comedic value. From there, the story takes a backseat to the gameplay experience, which is where Helldivers 2 really shines.

Overall, the story of Helldivers 2 perfectly matches the direction the developers intended. It's fun, simple, and easy to get attached to.

 

Helldivers 2 Review – Gameplay

Overall, Hellldivers 2's gameplay took a leap of faith by transitioning from top-down to third person perspective. Fortunately, I think it was a shift that worked extremely well, as it makes the game more marketable. While top-down shooters are fun, a third-person perspective puts you closer to the action. You can feel the intensity and weight of combat a lot more now.

From watching lasers barely miss you, to seeing your orbital strike drop down next to you and shake the screen, Helldivers 2 makes you feel the action. Additionally, this third-person perspective kind of gave vibes similar to the original Star Wars Battlefront II from Pandemic. Furthermore, the game does let you aim from a first person perspective, for targeting enemies from a longer range.

Overall, Helldivers 2's transition to this new perspective worked extremely well, but how's the rest of the gameplay?

When you start the game, and depending on when, your Galaxy Map should shows all available missions and worlds to visit. Each World has a progress meter, which shows the collective efforts of all Helldivers 2 players. Completing a mission on a planet earns progress towards liberating it and opening new worlds. I logged in this morning to take a look and see how much progress was already made, and it was nice having this sense of progress in an online game.

The successful launch of the game also helped, with Helldivers 2 outselling even Palworld and Counter-Strike 2 for a period of time. Furthermore, it released at a pretty good time, separate from the usual wave of massive releases every September – December, but not in the Summer. These factors, along with several others, hopefully lead to a healthy population for the game on both platforms. Thankfully, Helldivers 2 does offer Crossplay functionality, helping you find fellow soldiers to drop down with.

When you've decided which planet to fight on, you have the choice of choosing one of several missions separated by difficulty. You then drop down in Halo ODST style on a small map full with objectives to complete. Some levels require you only complete two or even just one objective. However, you can explore the map and search for item like Super Credits, Samples, and tons of other assets you can bring back to the ship. Just be careful, as dying will result in you dropping your loot.

When you've completed the main objectives, you'll be tasked with extracting, which lets you keep all your loot and earn extra XP. Similar to MW3's Zombies mode, you need to survive waves of enemies until the evac ship arrives and takes you off the planet. Overall, I had blast laying down a line of sentry turrets with my teammates as we sat back and relaxed for the ship to arrive. Additionally, this extra objective prevents you from getting bored upon leaving the mission, and gives you the choice when you want to end it.

Helldivers grants each player 5 lives each, which are all shared. Therefore, if you have a squad of four, you'll have 20 total lives in the level, which one squad mate can waste up if they want. Dying in Helldivers 2 is constant, and what makes the experience challenging. You really need to play tougher missions with at least two other people because of how much the game throws at you.

Since you're not a super soldier, you don't have a lot of health, ammo, or any special abilities. Additionally, you can't even jump unless next to a platform you can clamber over. That just shows how weak you are in comparison to other titles you may have played. Therefore, teamwork is key to Helldivers 2, a game where thick snow or tall bushes will slow you down.

Furthermore, the game does let you drop into battle with different stratagems, which assist you in battle. These Stratagems vary from Resupply pods with ammo and Stims, or Orbital strikes which help defeat waves of enemies. Additionally, these stratagems let the player spawn special weapons like machine guns, Anti-Tank launchers, and much more. You unlock more stratagems, weapons, as you level up and collect more resources. So while you're fighting a galactic effort, there's also some personal gain to playing.

Each weapon in the game, besides perhaps the standard pistol, felt good to use. I'm glad to say Helldivers 2 does not feel pay-to-win as of yet. Of course, future Warbonds may change that, but at the end of the day, it's not as frowned upon since it's a co-op shooter. Nevertheless, I've never been a fan of microtransactions, even if they are just for cosmetic items, so I must mention that this did affect my review score.

Fighting both enemy factions is extremely satisfying, and it's hard to pick a favorite. Shooting the different parts of an automaton off or blowing up a Terminid's squishy body felt all too fun to do. I found myself switching between both factions and the worlds I visited because I would remember how much fun it was to fight them. It gets even more fun when you work together to fight enemies like the Bile Titan, a massive Terminid.

This creature, which I've only fought once yet, is an absolute nightmare. Unless you and your team are prepared, you're losing all your lives in an instant. Additionally, this thing is always surrounded by backup, just waiting to ruin your day. These boss interactions made the co-op experiences more fun, and more hilarious. And when friendly fire can't be turned off, you know it's gonna be blast with how many mistakes you'll make.

In terms of actual online play, Helldivers 2 is one of the best online co-op games right now. One thing I must say is that, despite some connection issues on launch day, the online worked perfectly. I dealt with very little lag and no disconnections. Overall, I found the online experience felt just as smooth as single-player, as if nothing changed. While I'm sure I'll deal with some issues in the future, my current experience felt unreal.

That said, Helldivers 2 does offer a vast amount of customization, both cosmetically and strategically. As mentioned, you earn resources when playing, all that can be spent on unlocking new stratagems, armor types, and weapons. Although I'm sure players will find the best weapons soon, it seems no Helldiver is really the same. Whether it's their design or their combat abilities, Helldivers 2 offers a ton of variety for you to make your own soldier.

The only downsides to Helldivers 2's multiplayer was two things. Firstly, I wish the game included maybe one more enemy faction. The Terminids and Automatons are great, which is why I want to encourage the developer to make more. Imagine how cool it would be if a third enemy type attacked both you and the other faction? Like the maps, you do get tired of seeing the same two enemies after some time.

If a new enemy faction feels like too much, then we recommend something like a beast or monster in the map that's friendly to no one. That way, you could perhaps lure a band of robots to the monster and let a real fight commence. I'm not saying my ideas are the best, but hopefully the developers think of new ways to keep the gameplay fresh.

Secondly, I just wish I could jump. I know that feels silly to say, but you have no idea unless you play it yourself, You can do a dive button and clamber over walls, but it doesn't feel the same. Overall, we understand that we are weak. However, we just wish they taught us jumping before giving us our own vessels. Nevertheless, it's not the biggest flaw.

Overall, Helldivers 2's gameplay offers something that feels both nostalgic yet not outdated. It far surpasses the original in almost every aspect, which was a difficult task considering the quality of the original. The day one connectivity issues almost hampered my experience, but thankfully it was seemingly addressed.

Helldivers 2 Review – Graphics

Overall, Helldivers 2 looks and feels beautiful to explore. I appreciate that, although the game is comedic, the visuals look rather real and delicate. Exploring with your squad through a small forest or open field just visually pleases me.

While Helldivers 2 obviously isn't the best looking game on the market, it still really impresses me. Furthermore, everything loads pretty well too for an online game. I rarely see objects loading in, or surface textures taking forever to appear. I think that's because the game never puts you in these massive spaces, but instead, puts you in smaller maps with tons of content.

Furthermore, the enemy designs look perfect in each environment. I loved watching the Terminids crawl out of the snow, before satisfyingly blowing up. Seeing the red glow of the Automaton skulls and blasts at night felt almost relaxing. Despite all the chaos going on, I had to admire the little visual effects that went a long way.

The only caveat to the visuals is that, after some time it does become repetitive. You see the same snow, desert, and forest environments and it rinses and repeats. The maps look awesome, don't get me wrong, but I think just a couple of more maps would go a long way to spruce things up.

Nevertheless, Helldivers 2 is beautiful, in both gameplay and looks.

Helldivers 2 Review – Audio

The moment I found out Yuri Lowenthal was a voice option, I already knew what to do. The man who voiced Sasuke and Spider-Man voicing my soldier? Hell yeah!

Jokes aside, Helldivers 2's soundtrack feels fitting for the setting it puts itself in. While I won't say the orchestrated tracks rival that of Hanz Zimmer, they feel appropriate for the game's story. Overall, I really can't ask for much more out of the soundtrack since it feeds into the narrative. While I won't say it's jaw dropping, it certainly feels nice to hear while things go down planetside.

However, Helldivers 2's sound design is definitely noteworthy. The sounds of guns, grenades, orbital drops, all sound satisfying. Hearing a Terminid blow up into pieces or the bullets hitting the metal of an Automaton sounded great. There's not much more to say about the Audio, but that's because it's not as central to the experience as the other areas in my opinion.

Review Verdict: Is Helldivers 2 Worth Your Money?

Helldivers 2 captures the essence of Starship troopers and puts it into video game form. But in all honesty, if someone asked me whether I wanted to watch the movie or play the game, I'd go with the latter. And that's because Helldivers 2 lets you live the action yourself, and participate in a massive war effort. Between sweet gameplay, a comedic and fun story, and great online co-op, Helldivers 2 scratches an itch that not many other online games did for me.

Arrowhead Game Studios went above and beyond to produce a sequel that improves upon the first in every way. The only things that negatives to Helldivers 2 were microtransactions and some repetition after awhile. That said, I still find myself thinking about playing the game with some friends. It almost kind of takes me back to the days as a kid when all I had to worry about was when my friends were getting online.

We recommend Helldivers 2 if you love online co-op shooters. However, if you don't have PS+, or prefer to play solo, then maybe it won't be as fun. But between the great gameplay and cheesy story, Helldivers 2 offers a fantastic experience.

That concludes our Helldivers 2 review. I hope to see you out there on the battlefield spreading Managed Democracy!

Helldivers 2 Review – Score: 9/10

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