Helldivers 2 Review

Every time I blew myself up, got mauled by a giant roach-like bug or shot across the land by a robot’s cannon I was forced to remind myself that there’s no real way to get better at Helldivers 2. The endless waves of enemies, the countless deaths and the ever-growing war are part of the experience. It is the war that you’ll never win and during the game’s higher difficulties, this theme is clear.

Helldivers 2 does an excellent job of throwing you into an intergalactic war. However, its propaganda machine is the real joke at play here. You’re just another mindless merc who has enlisted to “do their part” in the fight – a fight that will never end. You know it, they know it and even the corporations banking on the profits of war know it.

It kind of reminds me of Deep Rock Galaxy. You’re just another pawn in the game to benefit the fat cats. Whether or live or die doesn’t matter. Even extracting you from the mission is more of a task for them than anything else. But that is the whole point of this game. It is a brainwashed mercenary mindset we’ve seen across the likes of Starship Troopers. Perhaps a satirical joke about the US Navy?

Helldivers 2 is simply put, an intense action war shooter where explosions and death are the day. You start as a newly recruited Helldiver who has been born and bred to fight for liberty. Whether you had any real say in the matter is unclear but you get dropped across various planets with different goals.

Of course, these goals are all hindered by the deadly forces that will stop at nothing to kill you. Helldivers 2 features two enemy factions. We have the oversized bugs and the Automatons – killer robots which represent a rogue AI set on galaxy domination.

The real joy of the game is how the gameplay loop changes on a constant basis. When dropped into a bug-infested planet, I was the hunted. These bugs would non-stop run at me as they tried to tear me apart. Tear me limb from limb. Why? Well, the game doesn’t say but these bugs are born from spores that evolve into large alien husks.

These bugs make nests underground and slowly infest planet by planet. Most of the missions revolve around eradicating the bugs, destroying nests and blowing up eggs. Different difficulties mean more bugs and even bigger bugs. Chargers, for example, are the worst things around. These large armoured bugs constantly run at you to flatten your body. They take forever to die and when you’re dealing with five or six of them, they feel overwhelming.

Spitters are large sac-like bugs that spew bile at you. The green ones can melt you instantly and the yellow ones explode when shot on the back. There’s also the standard mobs. I use the word “standard” lightly here because even the little bitch bugs can take you down in a few seconds.

These bug missions provide very different gameplay elements from the robots, which I will explain in a bit. Bug missions relied on constantly moving and running away from the ever-growing waves of insects. Instead of facing them head-on, I was using the environment to get to higher ground to call in my attacks from above. The key to survival here is to avoid being ambushed by the group. So you don’t stop moving.

Automatons, on the other hand, are a large army of killer robots that rely less on physical damage and more on ranged attacks. Don’t get me wrong, there are melee-focused robots but they don’t run as fast and aren’t as horde-based as the bugs.

So instead of running for my life all the time, a visit to a robot planet meant changing the gameplay to a cover-based shooter. It was the case of shooting back at robots who were firing rockets and ammo at me. I had to focus on avoiding tank cannon fire while taking out rocket grunts and shooting heavily armoured enemies in the back.

Helldivers 2 diversifies these two enemy factions in a brilliant way. Robot missions let me focus on a strategy when approaching a base. I could toss in Gatling Cannons from a distance, plan my route into a compound and even shoot down incoming drop ships with a rocket. These missions are incredibly explosive and felt like I was in some crazy Terminator war.

Alien bug missions, on the other hand, felt a little less organized. Bugs would pop up from the ground at random times and there was no real way to plan for a breach. It was a case of throwing everything at them and hoping for the best. Also, hoping my teammates don’t get blown up by my bad toss of a barrage.

To add to this intensity, the iconic Stratagem system is back in Helldivers 2 which relies on summoning various weaponry and calling down attacks from above by inputting a sequence of keys. These sequences change for each item. You are only as good as your Stratagems, if you have them, of course.

When starting a mission, you only have the gear on your back which includes some stim packs, a primary and secondary weapon and some grenades. The rest is all called down during the mission. So while you have an army of robots blasting at you and a horde of bugs chasing you down, you also need to worry about inputting the correct sequence of buttons to call down a barrage. You then need to worry about it avoiding you and your teammates. It is all a little much but the chaos makes Helldivers 2 enjoyable.

While the madness is unlike anything else I have played in a while, there were times when I felt like Helldivers 2 wasn’t going anywhere. Even on the middle-ground difficulty, the missions were near impossible. I had the majority of the gear unlocked and it felt like it didn’t make a difference.

I spent most of my time fending off enemies in my group of four players and thirty minutes later, I only escorted 10 out of 30 researchers to safety. They kept dying in the action. The enemy waves also don’t give you a break. There’s a constant flow of bug breaches and drop ships. So when are you meant to do the objective?

It also doesn’t help that Helldivers 2 has dropped its weapon upgrade system found in the first game. So you can unlock new weapons through the War bond system but these weapons are only as good as are when you first get them.

Better stratagems do help a little but these come with longer cooldowns and other disadvantages. I was able to reduce some cooldowns by upgrading my ship but these upgrades cut a second off the timer. Nothing wildly helpful. Also, getting these upgrades relies on resources which feel like takes forever to scrounge up in the world.

I know we’re “fighting the war we can’t win” and all that nonsense but Helldivers 2 comes off seriously unbalanced at times and it can be frustrating. There are only so many bugs you can kill with the best weapons and Stratagems in the game. When the game doesn’t stop spawning them, it feels like you’re running around for hours on end just killing stuff and never getting anything done.

Of course, this also means that Helldivers 2 is completely unplayable solo. While you can complete the first few difficulties alone, the game doesn’t scale at all for solo play. So each mission you go into alone, you’re facing bugs and robots for four players. You’ll need a squad of competent people to get you through the game.

Difficulty spikes aside, Helldivers 2 is fun. The game also manages to bring to life the galaxy itself. Each planet looks unique and the day/night cycle meant going into different missions had a different visual style depending on that too.

The game also changes on a constant basis. Sometimes certain effects are at play which cause environmental hazards. Rainstorms on some planets caused visibility problems. Some planets had high levels of spores which not only hindered our vision but also prevented us from seeing where we dropped into the mission.

We also recently got a “Defend” set of missions as the Automatons invaded nearby planets. So instead of the typical “search area and complete set objective”, these planet missions tasked us to kill over a hundred enemies before extracting.

These constant game changes are exactly live service done right. You never know what the game will offer tomorrow while you’re dealing with the challenges it brought today. I am quite excited to see how the galaxy evolves in the months ahead. Hopefully, it all boils down to a war on Super Earth with the robots and bugs at the same time – that would be pretty darn awesome.

Helldivers 2 is an excellent game that can get frustrating at times. It isn’t by any means a casual, single-player experience. That both works with and against it. However, if you’re ready to scream at the TV for days on end while you try to survive the onslaught of relentless enemies, it has you covered.

This Helldivers 2 review is based on the PS5 and PC versions of the game. It is now available on both platforms starting at R749.