Seeing as there isn’t a post about this game excusively…
Release 8th February 2024, Helldivers 2 is currently trending high on the hype. In just under a month, they’ve become the number 1 selling steam game, and managed to out grow the server cap of at first, 250k, then 350k, and then 450k. After some tweaks, and AFK timer kicks, it’s now under control. With about a 100 staff, only 5 of which are classified as backend/server dev’s, this is released by what I’d consider a small development studio, but published and funded by Sony themselves. Available on PS5, and Steam, they’ve given the shaft to Xbox games 
. On to
Back story
A satirical take on democracy, this game is set in a world and interstellar system, where Super Earth is at war with alien terminids (bugs), and AI automatons (bots), and it’s your duty, as a Helldiver (free soldier), to bring the truth of democracy to them. If you’ve seen the movie, Starship Troopers, this is essentially, what that movie would be like, if it was a game. On to
Gameplay
3rd person shooter, primary 2 handed gun, a 1 handed pistol, and a grenade of some sort, is what you land with. You have access to stratagems, orbital attacks, weapons, and utility machinery, that can be called down from orbit. They have a cooldown, and often, some wait time, before the deployment arrives on the ground. And they’re always activated, with arrow key input combinations. Example: an Orbital Airburst Strike, you would call down with Stratagem key, right, right, right. This is one of the easier input codes. Shortest codes are 3, longest 6. As you can imagine, trying to call stratagems in the heat of a gunfight, can make for a panicky mistake ridden call, and have you retrying a few times, while running for your life, because you can’t shoot, while you’re doing this.
But wait, this isn’t a solo game, this is a live service game, which leans towards co-op. You can drop in with a squad of 4 helldivers, and sow the glorious seeds of democracy, amongst the terminid/automaton scum. Here’s where it gets interesting… friendly fire cannot be turned off.
You can kill friends, and your friends can kill you. Per ongeluk
Normally something like this, you would think can be terrible, but to my surprise, it actually adds to the fun. Strafe into your team mates line of fire, dead. Sometimes a player will take one for the team, by dropping a Eagle Cluster Bomb, standing his ground, to help the other 3, disengage from wave after wave of enemies. The extraction plane, can kill you if you’re standing on the landing pad. Sometimes all it takes is a badly place Orbital Precision Strike maybe 2metres too close, and you are dead. It is designed chaos, on the battlefield, and it’s addictive fun.
Cherry on the top. Revives, called reinforces in this game. It’s not automatic. You have a set amount availalbe, and then after that, you have to wait for longer and longer cooldowns to complete. The best part: Reinforcing your dead squad mate, is a squad wide (yellow) stratagem, which means, you need to use the correct input codes for this too. If you’re running for your life, and you’re the last one alive, this can be both thrilling and terrifying, as you struggle to revive your team mates, one by one.
While you do level, and there is gear and stratagems to unlock, you actually have pretty solid gear and stratagems available to you under level 5. Also, just because people are high level, doesn’t make them overpowered. This game has a higher skill ceiling than I thought it would. There is room to get better through experience, not just which stratagems you have access too. And with the sheer variety of types of missions to do and side objectives, in those missions, you’ll soon learn, that every stratagem has optimal uses, as well as an oh hell no scenario.
History
Helldivers 2 implies there’s a first game. It was top down shooter, but essential has the current gear and stratagem lists and more. For some reason, they’ve chosen not to add everything 
It was never a large player base before, but now, it’s huge. If the input codes sound familiar, it’s because, this is the same dev studio that made Magicka, the top down wizard “shooter”. Same idea, you input arrow codes to call spells. Coincidentally, you also don’t do well in water 
State of the game code
I feel like most games, need this nowadays, sadly. Everything always seems rushed. The first few weeks were rough, mostly because more people bought than they ever thought would so early on, so they hit their server limit very very quickly, and kept hitting it, right up to 450000 players. They did raise it again, and currently I’m not sure what it is, but I haven’t had any problems getting in again. Stability wise, the game is still plagued by crash to desktop’s, though I would guestimate at less than 5%, and all on PC. There are sometimes, connectivity issues, where you’ll be randomly disconnected. But you can just reconnect through the recent player list. Again, no longer something that happens often, but definitely, still something that happens. They have released 13 or so patches in about a month. There is still more on the way, and this includes balance patches, as well as future content, which we are all chomping at the bit for.
Graphics, sound and the little things
I can’t say much more than it’s good. It’s great. It’s cinematic at times. It can make you feel like all hope is lost, and then that you are the hero that no one wanted, but everyone needed. The guns sound great, handle well, within the gear design aspects. They do need balance, but we know that’s coming already. Weather and enemies can affect visibility. The sun can be blinding or on a clear day, you snipe up to 150m, if your placement is on point. There is a noise profile, that will alert enemies. And while there’s any discrete UI elements to measure noise and if the enemy has spotted you, it definitely is there. Stealth is a factor, in how you see there behaviour change, not in something that’s visible on the HUD. You look for going prone and breaking line of sight, rather than watching the corner of your screen, like you would with Assassin’s Creed.
Is this game for me?
If you are on steam? I would say, buy it immediately, and play for an hour. You will know very soon, if it’s for you. You have up to 2 hours of play time, to refund on steam, without any issues. Other than that, if you like shooters, games where you need to survive waves of enemies, objective driven missions, a skill ceiling that can clearly separate the expert from the noob, but still easy enough to you to eventually get there, a cinematic atmosphere, that makes you think you’re really fighting a war, and love to bring your friends along for a laugh, this game is for you.
FYI: I haven’t rallied in EA Sports WRC in weeks. That’s how good this game is…
For Super Earth!
Last edit and warning: there have been 2 scam versions of the game on steam. The correct games are the 2 versions of the game released on the 8th February 2024. Please check the release date.
