Saturday Morning Gaming: Helldivers 2

To cut to the chase: Helldivers 2 is a squad-based shooter. You will have a one-handed weapon (like a pistol), a two-handed weapon (like a machine gun), a special weapon (like a *HEAVY* machine gun), and grenades. You’re fighting non-human enemies in quick 40ish minute bursts where you have some objectives on a map and then, once you fulfill the objectives, you have a final objective of calling down a transport ship to take you back to your mothership where you get to store (or spend) the loot you accumulated during your mission to the planet.

Okay. That’s the bare-bones of the gameplay. What makes the game special is the lore they give you.

The world is one much like in Starship Troopers. A military state ruled by “managed democracy”. Young people are given military training, speeches about how great they are, then a kick in the butt as they’re dropped out of a ship to kill bugs.

You’re a Helldiver. You get Helldiver training from the most-grizzled general in the solar system. The training takes about 5 minutes. You are then given your cape and sent out to kill the bug or robots on (insert planet here). Your mission will consist of something like “find and kill the brood queen” or “bring fuel station online” or, for purists, “kill bugs”. Your mission will probably have two of these… so part one will involve going to a site on a map and doing your mission, going to a second site on a map and doing your mission, then going to a third site on the map and holding your ground until a dropship comes to pick you up. Once back on your ship, you’ll see that the planet you were on has become one ten-thousandth of a percent more liberated.

Oh, and you get to name your dropship too. Something like (X) of (Y). “Mother of Liberty”. “Patriot of Vigilance”. I named my ship “Ombudsman of Victory”.

Along the way, your character will die a lot. When your character dies, one of your squadmates will call in a replacement and then you’ll get to play again (with a new voice actor this time).

And, all the while, your character will yell stuff like “TASTE DEMOCRACY!” or “ENJOY A HOT CUP OF LIBER-TEA!”

Afterwards, you’ll get experience points (and maybe go up a level) and, if your loot made the trip back, an opportunity to buy upgrades for your Helldiver. Maybe you’ll pick better starting weapons. Maybe you’ll pick “full ammo” (instead of only having half-ammo). Maybe you’ll pick the ability to drop turrets from your mothership. Or call in marginally more effective airstrikes.

And then you’ll go back down and do it again.

Your weapons mostly suck, they take *FOREVER* to reload, you aren’t given half of much ammo as you end up needing, and you’re going to die *ALL THE TIME*.

AND HOLY COW IS THIS GAME FUN.

I mean, I don’t even particularly like multiplayer and I had a blast playing this with my buddy last night. We were yelling stuff about democracy and freedom into the mic, killing bugs, getting killed by bugs, calling in air strikes, calling in reinforcements when the other one died, and basically having a *BLAST*. Some strangers joined up with us, we all started chatting, we all were yelling stuff about freedom, he showed us various places that were likely to have loot that we, as n00bs, overlooked, and had us join his discord.

And, get this, *I JOINED IT*.

That’s how much fun it was.

If you’re looking for a silly and goofy game where you run around and kill bugs and yell stuff about democracy, you need to get Helldivers 2. It’s just dumb fun.

So… what are you playing?