What I like about Helldivers 2

Full disclosure, I’ve only played about 3 hours of Helldivers 2 so far, but I’ve really liked what I’ve played and I am constantly feeling the pull to go back to it. So here are some thoughts about why I think that is. First of all, the moment-to-moment running around and shooting robots/bugs/etc is good. The weapons feel powerful, the enemies react how you want them to with broken limbs and guts/wires flying everywhere. Being 1 (of up to 4) people against swarms of bad guys that are bigger and scarier than you is fun. Hearing the propaganda messages between messages and your soldier shouting about freedom and democracy every time they kill a bug or throw a grenade has not gotten old yet.

But what stands out in Helldiver 2 is the Galactic War, a galaxy spanning meta game that reflects the state of the war between Super Earth and their various enemy factions. Not only does the galactic war allow the player to experience the changing narrative of the game, recently players had to go to a specific planet to save factories in order to unlock big mech suits in the game. But it also just allows players to pick what they want to do, at any given time there are 10-20 different planets available to choose missions from, the different planets have different enemies, different environmental states, and potentially even different mission types. If a player doesn’t care about saving the mech factories they still have a bunch of other missions they can do, all of which help change the state of the war.

I have always been a fan of feeling like a part of a large group of people working together towards shared goals, but videogames have rarely captured this feeling for me. Fantasies like being on a big sailing ship, pulling one rope while dozens of other crew members do their jobs all for the goal of moving this big ship with one common purpose. When I was a kid I always thought about how every time I threw a rock in the ocean it was raising the water all across the world by a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an inch. Maybe this makes me a commie but I’ve always been drawn towards the fantasy of being a small individual contributing anything towards a larger goal. While Helldivers' version of that places you as a completely faceless replaceable cog in a fascist war machine the feeling of every mission I complete contributing to a shared goal still feels good.

Games have always included cooperation, but games like Sea Of Theives can put a lot of pressure to make sure that everybody is pulling their weight or else nobody has fun. Helldivers has allowed me, so far, to be able to play basically solo. I’ve grouped up with random players, and played low difficulty missions solo. All of which has felt very low pressure as far as ruining other players’ time. Even if I fail a mission solo somehow the amount it sets b