Helldivers 2

A large-scale co-op extraction shooter, third-person game Helldivers 2 continues the story of humanity’s fight against alien invaders across fronts spanning the entire galaxy. After recovering from their defeat in the finale of Helldivers, the vicious foes have once again descended upon the world of humanity. And once again, the “Helldivers” have been called into action—elite soldiers capable of fighting for freedom and democracy with the biggest, coolest, and most explosive weapons in the galaxy. Despite lacking a serious storyline or a unique protagonist, the game has amassed a huge fan base thanks to its dynamic, chaotic gameplay, amusing friendly-fire mechanics, high difficulty, and well-tuned co-op systems.

The Helldivers series is set in a hypothetical sci-fi future where the Federation of Humanity has conquered the galaxy under the wise leadership of Super Earth. People prosper by taking part in military campaigns aimed at destroying any life forms that threaten their values and freedom—namely, giant bugs, communist robots, and the mysterious Illuminates.

The sequel, Helldivers 2, focuses on satirizing authoritarian regimes, rampant propaganda, and the military-industrial complex. For instance, Super Earth, which seems to symbolize freedom and liberalism, is in fact an ultra-authoritarian regime. The sarcasm and mockery come through in the game’s environments, posters and videos shown to players, character designs, and combat dialogue. The genuine enthusiasm of the “20-minute-lifespan” soldiers as they talk about freedom, liberalism, and shared values brings to mind the meme-worthy opening of the 1997 film Starship Troopers, but the creators of Helldivers 2 take the parody even further, at times pushing it to absurdity.

The sequel’s events continue those of the original, but you don’t need to know the backstory. Helldivers 2 simply has no script, large cast of characters, or staged scenes. The developers direct events, while each player and the community as a whole actively participate and steer the story in one direction or another.

There’s a galaxy map with sectors, sub-sectors, and planets that are being fought over. The players’ objective is to liberate a planet from one foe or another. The developers make sure the process of spreading democracy is costly for the human team, whether through bonuses or penalties in the form of hordes of cannon fodder.

New types of enemies were added, and humanity went on the defensive. Weapons or powerful equipment were dropped onto the map, speeding up the liberation of the galaxy. A new alien faction launched a surprise attack, and the community found itself in trouble on every front. The developers’ direct influence on gameplay is what set Helldivers 2 apart from other live-service games.

Based on the successes achieved on the galactic war fronts, the developers release news updates about the latest victory for democracy or its sudden setback, writing the story as they go. This keeps players engaged with what’s happening.

Each planet in Helldivers 2 gets a unique combination of terrain and ecosystem, drawn from a set of basic terrain types (sand, rocks, hills, tundra, ice, jungles, meadows) and environmental conditions (sandstorms, dense fog, rain, heat, and so on, all the way up to volcanic eruptions, meteor showers, and fire tornadoes). This combination is permanently assigned to the planet.

The locations where players land, however, are generated randomly based on the planet’s terrain and environmental conditions, taking the difficulty chosen by the players into account. This creates a unique setting, with its own quirks and challenges, making every drop exciting. The environment actively affects gameplay, while the changing day-night cycle adds to the variety of experiences.

Adapting to the environment is an important part of success. For example, deep snow on an icy world slows movement, but the cold gives energy weapons an advantage by improving their cooling. An ion storm that breaks out during the spread of democracy will cut off communications with orbital support. Or take a sandy world: it doesn’t impede movement until the wind kicks up the sand, but its high temperatures limit your weapon choices to firearms. And all this under threat from a scorching fire tornado.

Players “travel” between planets aboard spaceships that serve as fully fledged hub locations. Acting as an operations base, each ship lets players customize their loadout and ship, unlock new gear, weapons, armor, and ship abilities, and buy cosmetics. The hub also handles social features: players form groups, review intel on their upcoming drop, and prepare for it.

Every drop includes a set of main and secondary objectives, regardless of the chosen difficulty. Most main objectives are designed to take 40 minutes and involve defending sites or territories; searching for useful resources; evacuating civilians; finding a data source and transmitting the data to base; or simply raising a flag. A smaller number of objectives take 10–15 minutes and involve killing a certain number of enemies or destroying enemy bases or nests.

Secondary objectives are side quests that particularly eager and experienced players can complete without getting sidetracked from the drop’s main objectives. Examples include activating a radar station, retrieving data from an escape pod, eliminating a special target, destroying a research station, activating an artillery emplacement, destroying an anti-aircraft emplacement, and more. They may be marked on the map from the start or discovered along the way.

As is standard for live-service games, Helldivers 2 players receive personal assignments every day. The entire community also receives High Command orders—for example, to conquer or hold a planet.

The core gameplay is simple: complete the drop objectives and evacuate, while surrounded by enemies swarming in from all sides and trying to stop you. The situation quickly descends into chaos as players struggle to complete their objectives and constantly make tactical decisions while running low on everything, all without letting go of the trigger. A touch of realism, in the form of friendly fire and limb injuries, only adds fuel to the fire.

Enemies can be cut down with an arsenal that includes revolvers, submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, hand grenades, and mines. Each has its own characteristics (damage, rate of fire, recoil, and penetration) that affect its effectiveness against specific enemies. Armor comes in three types: light, medium, and heavy. Each offers a different playstyle and passive bonuses to character stats.

Stratagems are a unique feature of Helldivers 2. They are dropped from the ship at a location requested by a player on the ground, and are limited only by a cooldown. Stratagems provide players with supplies, stims, and other equipment bonuses, or offer powerful ways to fight enemies—airstrikes and orbital strikes. This adds variety to the tactical options available in gameplay.

Progression in Helldivers 2 has several layers. For completing missions, players receive samples (resources of three rarity levels), medals, requisition, super credits , and experience. The amount of rewards depends on the difficulty of the drop, objectives completed during it, caches found, and plain luck. Difficulty is a reward in itself: the more successful your drops, the tougher missions the game will throw at you.

Each reward has its own progression track. Experience builds toward levels that determine a player’s rank and the difficulty of drops they can access, and also lets them purchase new stratagems. Medals earned after each drop can be spent in the store on better weapons and equipment. Samples unlock new ship modules. Super Credits—an in-game equivalent of real money that can also be found in the game—unlock cosmetic items.