A drop-pod descends from the low orbit of Erata Prime, bursting through the atmosphere and landing in the middle of a firefight. A lone soldier emerges from the pod, cape waving heroically and armor shining in the light before more than 50 sheep-sized bugs devour them in a flurry of limbs, gunfire, and razor-sharp claws. This may have been the end of this unfortunate soldier, but as another drop-pod falls towards the alien soil, it is clear that they won’t be the last. This is a common experience in Arrowhead Game Studios’ newest title, Helldivers 2, where players take on the role of the titular Helldivers: Shocktroopers who drop from orbit to dispense freedom and liberty in the name of Super Earth, a warmongering, indoctrinated regime comedically masquerading as a democratic, peaceful republic.
The core gameplay of Helldivers 2 revolves around completing missions as part of a wider galactic war effort whose events are decided by the player base. These missions support up to four players and come in two types: Liberation and Defense. Liberation missions revolve around clearing enemy positions, destroying defense systems, and allowing Super Earth’s main forces to safely deploy.
In contrast, Defense missions include evacuating civilians, activating defense systems, and buying Super Earth time to set up defenses. Each mission completed contributes to either returning planets to Super Earth control or keeping planets from falling to enemy forces.
These missions vary in difficulty, from extremely easy to the nightmarish “Helldive” difficulty. Each stage of difficulty causes different enemy spawns, mission types, sub-objectives, and modifiers, but gives more rewards the higher the difficulty. These rewards can be spent on acquiring new weapons, getting more combat boosts, and upgrading your very own Super Destroyer, a massive spaceship which acts as a personal headquarters for the player. In addition to new weapons, players can unlock different armor sets, which have their own effects, benefits, and drawbacks.
Helldivers 2 has a great system of progression, making the player feel as though they are advancing through the game as they unlock more tools and weapons to fight with. Helldivers 2 also has a fantastic combat system, with engaging enemies and fun missions that give it great replayability. In addition, its graphics match those of top Triple-A game developers. The popularity of Helldivers 2 caught Arrowhead Game Studios off guard as the previous game, Helldivers, peaked at around 6,500 players, while the sequel has achieved an all-time player count of around 458,000 concurrent users, overworking the servers and leading to millions of players being unable to play for several days as Arrowhead frantically worked to expand the server capacity. These factors all speak to the quality of Helldivers 2 in nearly all aspects.
The game is not without its flaws, however, as Helldivers 2 suffers from and has suffered from several bugs that cause many problems for players, often causing crashes or making certain features, such as the friends feature, not work as intended. Helldivers 2 also suffers from having many weapons being objectively worse than others, with it being most apparent in some shotguns and heavy armor, which are worse choices for players, even though all weapons are intended to be useful in their own situations.
In spite of its flaws, Helldivers 2 shines brightly and was one of the best games of 2024 and is on track to be one of the best of 2025 as well, easily topping other successful 2024 titles such as Palworld in playerbase retention according to SteamDB, maintaining most of that playerbase for over a year. All in all, Helldivers 2, which was released on February 8th, is a great game. Its co-op shooter gameplay, incredible graphics, and engaging mechanics make it a fantastic choice for any gamer wanting an interactive and, most importantly, fun experience.
