PLATFORM: PC, PS5 | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
**Review updated February 23rd**
Helldivers II‘s goofy intro cutscene lets you know exactly what you’re in for – you’re the newest member of the Helldivers, an elite force whose aim is to fight back against alien invaders who are threatening not only Super Earth but the entire galaxy. But you won’t be taking part in this galactic war alone – Helldivers II is an online multiplayer “live service” game, so you’ll be enlisted alongside other players as you band together in the ultimate fight for intergalactic democracy.
The words “live service” have become frowned upon over the last couple of years, with many companies seeking to wring every last penny out of their player base while not really giving anything substantial in return. But in Helldivers II‘s case, things look very promising indeed, with the only microtransactions being purely cosmetic, and an attentive development team who, in the two weeks since the game’s launch, have been constantly fixing problems to improve the experience while also mischievously throwing gameplay-based curveballs to keep players on their toes.
Setting off on your mission to liberate Super Earth is a simple case of heading to the galactic map on your ship, where you can easily see which planets are currently under attack. The galaxy is split into a few dozen sectors, each containing around five planets, and the collective goal of the entire player base is to liberate threatened planets by eliminating whatever hostile forces are currently in control (currently it’s the insect-like Terminids), with the ultimate aim of eventually creating a clear route from Super Earth in the centre all the way out to the edge of the galaxy. Only a handful of planets will be available at any one time, but when those have been saved, a new sector will open up and the quest continues. However, players also have to deal with the Automatons, a species of particularly violent robots who are attacking planets on the other side of the galaxy. What might happen if they make it to Super Earth is anyone’s guess, as is what happens if any other enemies (or potentially friendly allies) might make themselves known elsewhere in the galaxy…
When you touch down on your chosen planet, you’ll mostly be running around shooting anything that moves en route to your main objective, which generally tasks you with killing something, defending something, or escorting something somewhere. Once that’s done, it’s off to the extraction point where your team needs to survive for a couple of minutes until a ship arrives to take you to safety. There are smaller side objectives too, if you take the time to hunt around for them, along with various resources and weaponry to be found across each planet. There isn’t a huge variety of enemies at the moment, but there’s a decent variety of objectives to work towards and each success furthers the overall progress and gives you a handful of experience points and some in-game currency.
As you level up, new items become available to purchase, adding new weapons to your arsenal, more effective armour (although there aren’t too many differences between each piece of gear, which might be an area for future improvements), and special abilities called Stratagems that allow you to call down heavy weapons, airstrikes, supply boxes and all kinds of other things that prove immensely useful. With each player taking two weapons and four Stratagems into each mission, and friendly fire always being on, there’s huge potential for things to get unpredictably chaotic, and they usually do, particularly on higher difficulty settings (of which there are nine to choose from, with rewards increasing at higher levels). It’s definitely the sort of game that’s best played with others though – even on the lower difficulty settings, things can quickly get overwhelming when playing solo, so having backup from some real life pals or online strangers (who, in this game at least, seem to be a helpful and respectful bunch) is pretty much essential.
With so many planets available, along with crossplay between PC and PS5 to keep up the player count, and the potential for updates to add even more locations, enemy factions and special events, it’s easy to see how Helldivers II could well keep players occupied for months and possibly even years to come. Servers have been almost constantly full during the game’s first two weeks, with many players not even being able to get in to play the game, but with capacity now raised to a whopping 700,000 players (up from the previous limit of 450,000), things seem to be running a lot more smoothly. A mid-range pricetag sweetens the deal even further, making this a very attractive proposition for those with a penchant for high-octane intergalactic warfare.
