Helldivers 2 is the best online game I’ve ever played. I have no idea how anyone could make something better than this. Even the best games have some shortcomings. You might say Red Dead Redemption 2 has slow pacing, God of War’s boss fights aren’t that great, but here I can’t think of even the slightest criticism.
What’s All the Fuss About?
Helldivers 2 is the pinnacle of what an online game can be. A masterpiece. You are part of a military unit called Helldiver, invading planets in the galaxy and spreading democracy. That’s the game. The whole game feels like a parody. As a citizen of a planet called Super Earth, you bring democracy to other planets. You liberate other planets.
There is no main menu in the game. You start the game and it throws you into your own spaceship. You handle everything here. There is a galactic war map on the deck of the ship. Sometimes we, as humanity, invade a planet, and sometimes enemy races invade our planets and we try to defend them. The game works entirely on a cooperative basis. You can’t change the course of the war on your own. Each planet has a liberation percentage. When you complete a mission, its effect is something like 0.00001%. Only if all players work together cooperatively can you liberate that planet. This is what made the game so popular.
Helldivers 2 is originally a PlayStation exclusive game. We are used to PlayStation exclusive games coming to PC a few years after their release, but this game came to PC from day one. Normally, some PlayStation fans were angry about their games coming to PC, but something different happened with Helldivers 2. To spread democracy and liberate planets, PlayStation fans even wanted the game to come to Xbox.
Our Galactic Government sends the same order to all players and gives the same reward to everyone if they complete it. For example, protect this planet from the insect invasion. Invade these planets and take them from the Automatons. And so on.
Naturally, all players dive into these planets. You also gather a team of up to 4 people and dive into the planets.
By diving, I don’t mean just fighting. You really dive. After selecting one of the missions on the planet, you get into the hellpods on your spaceship and they launch you to the planets. The music that plays during this descent is something like DI DI DI DIIIN. A short rhythm that gets you in the mood. Almost every time we enter a mission, we shout “DI DI DI DIINN” during the loading screen. There are a few iconic themes that come to mind when you think of iconic music: Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean… I’m serious, Helldivers’ DI DI DI DIIN has that level of iconicity.
Anyway, let’s dive into the game. “DI DI DI DIINN”
Basic Gameplay
When you land on the planet, the first thing you do is prepare your equipment. You have equipment called stratagems. You can call them by entering various combinations with the directional buttons. For example, to make an orbital laser attack, you do right, down, up, right, down. Or if you want to call for reinforcement ammo, you do down, down, up, right.
Each piece of equipment, each stratagem has its own code. Instead of selecting equipment from a menu, we call our equipment with this mini-game. And when things get complicated, when you enter these codes incorrectly during the action, it creates even more chaos.
Let’s continue with the game. There are 3 types of stratagems in the game: Attack, support, and defense. You choose 4 of them that suit your game plan from among the many stratagems and go on a mission. You need to choose these stratagems carefully. You need to make a selection with your teammates according to your mission. For example, if you are going on a defense mission, one of your friends takes a turret, and you take an airstrike to quickly clear large groups of enemies. And so on.
We landed on the planet, if we have a stratagem that provides us with extra weapons, we called it. Now what? We open the map and go to the mission. There are a few main missions on the map, and various side missions. These side missions are not marked on the map. They appear as you explore the map. If you complete these missions, you can find extra resources or make the mission easier. For example, let’s say you find an air defense system that has been disabled by the enemy while exploring. You can make it operational again and secure the airspace. What does this mean? Enemy reinforcement ships are no longer a problem for you. Or you find something like a field gun while exploring. You can carry 4-5 shells and benefit from these artillery strikes throughout the mission. The order in which you load the shells even affects the game. The shells explode in the order you placed them. People have even started making guides on the internet for the most efficient shell order. Helldivers 2 is that crazy. The side content doesn’t end there. For example, if you are playing against insects, if you destroy the insect nests around, fewer insects will swarm you.
Unmatched Action
After completing the main missions on the map, you have the chance to leave the planet. You can go to the extraction point and call a ship to pick you up from the planet. Until the ship arrives, all the enemies on the map swarm you and you have to defend the area. When you use all your remaining equipment and barely get on the ship, the enjoyment you get from the game reaches its peak.
The chaos and action in this game are unmatched in any other game. You see things at the end of each match that you wouldn’t see even in a cutscene in any other game. There is a real battlefield atmosphere. I’m sure you haven’t seen such a battlefield in Battlefield or Call of Duty. One place is exploding, another place is exploding. Enemies are swarming you from everywhere. While all this is happening, you find yourself out of ammo and start running. Your stamina runs out. With your last bit of energy, you dive forward, pull out your pistol, and try to hold on to life. If that doesn’t work, you sacrifice yourself and launch missiles at yourself. Writing this makes me want to play.
You Are Not a Super Soldier, You Are Just a Soldier
In this game, you don’t control someone with superpowers. You are just a soldier. A pawn. You can be sacrificed. The game has a very realistic structure. Generally, the more realistic a game is, the closer it gets to being boring. Because reality is not very fun most of the time. The balance here is very well maintained. You control a character and this character is constantly interacting with the game world. You can fall, slide on slippery surfaces. We saw a jetpack and took it with a friend. We crashed to the ground every time we landed. For example, when you shoot, the bullet doesn’t go to the center of the screen. You have a reticle in the center of the screen, but the place where the bullet will go is shown with a circle. I think it was like this in War Thunder too. The bullet doesn’t come out of the camera, it comes out of the gun, and the position of the gun is constantly moving according to your character’s movement. Naturally, aiming becomes more difficult as you run and jump around. If you want, you can switch to a first-person perspective when aiming. But this doesn’t make things easier most of the time.
Don’t get me wrong, these difficulties don’t make the game boring. On the contrary, they make it much more enjoyable.
We dived into a planet with 4 people. We completed all the main missions, while the other 3 were handling the side missions, I went to the extraction point. I thought I would start the extraction process to save time while they were coming here. But insects kept swarming me. In the end, I ran out of ammo. I thought I would call for reinforcement ammo. The reinforcement I called fell on my head and I died. I can’t be mad at the game because it’s clear where the reinforcement package will fall. It’s entirely my fault. The game doesn’t allow for such mistakes and this is really enjoyable.
However, I don’t think the game would be this enjoyable if you don’t play it with your friends. If you are looking for someone to play with, we often play on our Discord server. We would be happy to have you.
Let’s continue praising the game. Because this is really one of the highest points any online game can reach. With its graphics, atmosphere, animations, everything is of the highest quality. If you made a story-driven game without touching the mechanics, it wouldn’t look out of place. On top of all this, the game’s excellent presentation makes it a really great game. When you think of presentation, you usually think of cutscenes. I’m not talking about that. From the way the game gives missions to the player to the dialogues within the missions, this concept of SPREADING DEMOCRACY is very well handled. It’s clear that this is a work of passion. In recent years, many service games that were seen as easy money-making tools have come out and failed quickly. They were all games that were not thought out and were only aimed at making money. Helldivers 2, on the other hand, is a game that has been thought out and made with passion, unlike all these games. That’s why it’s so successful.
Watch this review in video format.