HELLDIVERS 2 Review

Democracy needs you again. Ready to dive into hell again? Steam’s #2 top-selling game at the time of writing, Helldivers 2 is the pure definition of chaos that can only be solved by more chaos.

Released on 8 February 2024, you can now dive right where democracy needs you on PC (Steam) and PlayStation 5. Developed by Arrow Head Studios and published by PlayStation, you cannot make excuses to fight for liberty.

Let’s Helldive into our official HELLDIVERS 2 Review.

To Protect your Loved Ones

Being a part of the Helldivers isn’t an emotion, it’s a duty. To protect tomorrow, you pick up the arms today. Making the galaxy safer and providing your contributions is the only way to prove your life’s true worth. Picking up right where you left off on the first Helldivers, the action now goes third person. Fight for humanity like never before, complete operations that are vital for eradicating the planet from threats of Bile-Filled bugs or Rogue Automatons. Because as the general says, ‘It’s always a great day, to die for democracy’.

Helldivers 2 will fuel you with Non-Stop Adrenaline Rush

Helldiving is open across galaxies but obviously, you’re required only where a real threat exists. Join already existing squadrons, or drop into answering an SOS beacon, your allies will always be thankful for every effort you put into the mission and “REEEINNFOORRCINNGGG!” them. (Hoping their spacebars have not come off yet).

Or just in case you meet the Limited edition of certain helldivers who love to call an eagle right on top of you, and do not reinforce you while extracting, Going Solo is the perfect option on such sad days. This will allow you to not pick a fight of casually passing school of “JUMPING COCKROACHES TYPE BUGS”, and have the supply drop called all for your own takings (the sweet sweet magazine for my marksman rifle).

And that’s literally the entire game! Yes! No linear progression, no grinding, just stepping up the difficulty with each operation in which you prove yourself victorious. Earning medals will allow you to unlock various actually creative cosmetics, emotes and most importantly – Weapons.

HELLDIVERS CRASH COURSE

Helldiving is pretty easy. Walk up to your command centre in your own destroyer. I wish one day, custom names could be included in the game for naming the ships so I can name it “Baldev the Destroyer”. But for now, SES Song of Serenity will make do. Upon opening the mission command you can already track contested planets and available operations. By simply picking out your next operations of 3 missions, your ship will auto-navigate and jump to the destination as well as open up your lobby for fellow helldivers. As per the game’s popularity and loyalty, you can blindly expect them to be a part of your squad for the next 2 hours.

Yes, we are quite shocked but very happy seeing that 98% of the Helldivers community are dedicated, supportive and skilled at the game. The remaining 2% are easy to identify, they use their mics more than they’re supposed to. Real Helldivers ping the map, and the rest of the squad follows.

After everyone is ready, you simply enter your hellpod with the team, equip the Strategems you need for the mission and pick the drop location. The dropping sequence itself is the hidden loading screen for all 4 players which feels incredible and almost seemless. Right afterwards, you land on the designated spot and take up the mission on the order of your liking.

Each operation requires you to perform a certain task, which may have subtasks at times. Apart from the main mission, a region will usually have 2-3 side missions and 3-4 Bug nests of varying sizes. These POIs can be explored and completed for extra experience and RP, allowing for a better final score at the end of the mission. The game offers a limited open-world experience, allowing you to take up missions as per your order and liking, the only thing you need to keep an eye on is the timer. Your destroyer can only fly in the lower orbit to give you support for a limited time, and your pelican cannot jump out of space to escort you back once the ship leaves. So always watch the clock.

Each Helldiver is equipped with his own set of Strategems which can be used as per their liking. The only 2 that are shared are the re-supply and reinforcement. Reinforce is basically the total lives the hell divers have. This is a shared strategy and drastically reduces as the difficulty is increased. You can be 1 hit by most of the heavy enemies, so managing the total lives of the team is crucial and can be entirely compromised if even one Helldiver struggles.

Strategems you may ask? It’s more like a 3D-printed Pokeball which acts as a flare for marking requested drops or a hit zone for orbital strikes. To unlock better Strategems, you need to upgrade your ship. To upgrade your ship? Well, that’s the tedious part. You need to collect samples from your missions and bring them back. But once you die, you drop your samples, and recovering them, especially in high-difficulty missions becomes a chaotic responsibility. But it also makes sense, since upgrading ship eventually makes you really strong at the game, and the developers want to make sure you progress slowly so you can actually explore more of the game, before maxing out all abilities.

The Beautiful Planets with Colors of Danger

Oh Helldiver, what are your job perks? Landing various planets, with lush vegetation, beautiful landscapes, and at certain times, the beautiful flames of a napalm strike, engulfing a fleet of bugs. The game itself may not look really sharp with beautifully drawn distance elements or even a breathtaking outer space. But the game does enough or better yet, prepares itself to render 4 Napalm Strikes, 4 Orbital Strikes and 4 Eagles at once. The game itself will award you an achievement, should you attempt the same. All of that and you will still be chased by 6 Bile Tanks, 2 Nest Keepers and 1 Titan that loves walking over you.

It’s much more organized managable fighting automatons, but purging bugs is the greatest and yet the most dangerous task given to Helldivers. But exploring the infestations across the planets is its own glorious feat. From icy planets to barren lands with a beautiful Aurora in the sky, the colour palette of each planet blending with danger is no less than masterful art.

Speaking of the sound, the sound design of weaponry is great, especially how every chaotic situation comes together naturally to give a realistic feeling of War that your squad themselves are creating in real-time. As for the entire music sequence from preparing for a drop to dopping onto a planet, democracy is guaranteed to run through your blood.

Verdict

Helldivers 2 is an Action-Third Person Shooter Co-op game that is entirely community-driven. The game offers an entire list of difficulties to find the perfect pick that you can handle with your squad. With a long list of planets to discover and prevent infestations by performing various operations, you are guaranteed to devote yourself to fighting for democracy for hours. With an actual seamless, optimized, efficient performance of the game and multiplayer, I was always in for a good time while playing the game.

Only the ship modules upgrading part may feel a little bit grindy, and having to be put up with a ‘Failed to Join lobby’ error way more than often was always a turn-off. Otherwise, the game has everything you can ask for!

Oh! And a big thank you to the PlayStation India team for providing us with the opportunity to review the game <3