Helldivers 2 was released on 8 February 2024 and was a critical and commercial success, having sold in excess of 12 million copies within three months of its release. It won a number of awards and is considered one of the best games of 2024.
Gameplay
A player using the Orbital Laser Stratagem to battle Terminids
Helldivers 2 is a shooter game primarily played from a third-person perspective.[2] Players complete tasks (called "Missions") in procedurally generated levels (or "Operations") while fending off hordes of enemies. Players choose the difficulty level of their Operations, ranging from level 1 ("Trivial") to level 10 ("Super Helldive").[3]
A core gameplay feature carried over from the first game is the use of "Stratagems", powerful equipment which must be called in from orbit by executing a sequence of directional button or arrow key inputs. Players may select up to four Stratagems in advance to take into the mission with them, as well as a "Booster" which affects the whole team.[4]
Helldivers 2 features cooperative multiplayer with up to four players,[2] but does not include a dedicated single-player campaign.[5] It also provides optional cross-play between PlayStation 5 and Windows.[6]Friendly fire is always on.[7] In the initial days of release, gameplay involved staff at the studio observing players and influencing gameplay in real time.[8]
The game features live service content updates and has a battle pass system called "Warbonds" that never expire.[9] Warbonds can be purchased with in-game currency known as "Super Credits", which players can obtain in-game, purchase via microtransactions, or unlock as part of the Warbonds themselves. As of 12 December 2024, ten Warbonds have been released: "Helldivers Mobilize"; "Steeled Veterans"; "Cutting Edge"; "Democratic Detonation"; "Polar Patriots"; "Viper Commandos"; "Freedom's Flame"; "Chemical Agents"; "Truth Enforcers"; and "Urban Legends".[10][11][12][13] Players also obtain additional in-game currency in the form of "Warbond Medals" and "Requisition Slips", which may be discovered during missions or awarded by completing operations, missions, and objectives.[14]
As players gain experience and progress in levels, they unlock different weapons and Stratagems to use during missions.[15] Players can also collect "Samples", which are used to upgrade the player's Super Destroyer starship, providing advantages during gameplay.[16]
By completing Operations, players also contribute to the collective progress of "Major Orders", which are mass-collaborative missions that directly affect the outcome of the Galactic War in-game.[4][17]
Synopsis
Setting
Helldivers 2 takes place in the 22nd century, one hundred years after the triumph of Super Earth, a self-described managed democracy, over the Bugs, Cyborgs, and Illuminate during the First Galactic War. Humanity seized faster-than-light (FTL) travel technology from the defeated Illuminate, and used it to conquer the galaxy during a period known as the Great Democratization. Humanity also discovered that the decomposing corpses of the Bugs contain a unique and highly valuable resource known as E-710 which is used for FTL travel. Bug farms are established on human-colonized worlds, and after decades of genetic engineering and accelerated evolution, they become known as Terminids.[18]
Plot
The events of Helldivers 2 begin after the Super Earth Armed Forces fail to contain the Terminids, which have escaped their farms and are causing widespread chaos and destruction. Simultaneously, a new threat emerges in the form of the Automatons, descendants of the defeated Cyborgs, intent on getting revenge against humanity. Subsequently, the Illuminate, an ancient and technologically advanced alien race thought to be extinct, return and invade Super Earth's colonies. In response, Super Earth declares war and mobilizes the Helldivers, an elite task force, to combat the threats.[19]
Environmental storytelling is prevalent throughout the game, with various logs, notes, and propaganda messages available for players to find during gameplay.[20]
Development and release
On 3 December 2020, Arrowhead Game Studios revealed that work had started on a new project for PlayStation 5. It was confirmed that the game would be a third-person shooter.[21] Like the first game, Helldivers 2 runs on the discontinuedAutodesk Stingray game engine (originally known as Bitsquid). Arrowhead Game Studios founder Johan Pilestedt confirmed on social media that "The project started before [Stingray] was discontinued," adding, "Our crazy engineers had to do everything, with no support to build the game to parity with other engines."[22][23]
On 13 September 2021, Helldivers 2 was mentioned in a GeForce Now leak.[24] The game was teased in a TikTok post showing Arrowhead's social media manager starting their workday, which is followed by a series of posts from fans demanding them to release the game.[25] On 18 August 2022, a 12-second clip of gameplay was leaked on Twitter, but was later removed.[26][27]
On 24 May 2023, Helldivers 2 was announced during the 2023 PlayStation Showcase, with a slated release of sometime in 2023.[28] On 6 July 2023, a trailer showcasing gameplay was released.[4][7] On 30 July 2023, the game received an M rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board for "blood and gore" and "intense violence".[29] On 14 September 2023, gameplay was shown in a PlayStation State of Play event, and it was announced that the game would release on 8 February 2024.[30] Pre-orders became available on 22 September 2023.[31] On 8 February 2024, the game was released on the PlayStation Store and Steam.[32]
Upon release, the game experienced a large influx of players, leading to widespread server and login issues for the first two weeks of release.[50] By the third week of release, the player cap was increased to "a whopping 700,000 concurrent users" according to Wesley Yin-Poole of IGN.[51]
Aaron Bayne of Push Square described the game as "a riotous affair, offering up best-in-class gunplay" and a "truly epic and often cinematic experience, mixed in with one of the best co-op gameplay romps currently available." However, he criticized the game for the server issues and crashes that players experienced after release.[45]
Helldivers 2 has been compared to the 1997 science fiction action film Starship Troopers; both are satirical comedies featuring a militaristic regime fighting against a race of large insectoids.[52][53]
Helldivers 2 has been listed among the best video games of 2024.[54][55][56][57]
Sales
On February 11, 2024, Johan Pilestedt, then-CEO of Arrowhead Games, announced that Helldivers 2 had sold approximately 1 million units.[58]
Helldivers 2 was the largest launch of any PlayStation Studios game available on PC.[59] Arrowhead stated that the game's success has greatly exceeded their expectations.[60] Following its initial success, Arrowhead Studios announced its intention to scale its studio and team to accelerate its post-launch content plans.[61][62] Pilestedt reacted to the game's ongoing success by stating that he hopes to see Helldivers become considered as iconic as PlayStation's other intellectual properties such as Uncharted, God of War, and Horizon.[63]
In Europe, the United Kingdom, and Canada, Helldivers 2 was the best-selling game of February 2024.[64][65][66]Helldivers 2 remained the best selling game in Canada in April 2024.[67]
By 24 February 2024, the game was estimated to have sold over 3 million units and became the most actively played game on the PlayStation Network, surpassing Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 and Fortnite.[68] By 15 March 2024, Helldivers 2 was estimated to have sold 8 million units and reached 450,000 concurrent players on Steam.[69] By 5 May 2024, 12 million units of the game had been sold, making it PlayStation's fastest selling video game of all time as well as Sony's most successful Windows title.[70]
Helldivers 2 was the third highest selling video game of 2024 in the United States.[71][72] It was also a top seller and the most played game on Steam in 2024.[73]
At launch, Helldivers 2 did not require PC players to log into a PlayStation Network (PSN) account, allowing players to skip the integration despite a line on boot up stating that a PSN account is required. On May 3, 2024, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that the PC version of Helldivers 2 on Steam would mandate users to sign in with a PSN account, taking effect for new players on May 6, 2024 and required for existing players by June 4, 2024. SIE stated that a PSN login is necessary to "[uphold] the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games", and that this requirement was not implemented at launch due to technical issues.[82] The announcement was met with criticism.[83] Additionally, many players called out that official documentation from Sony claimed that PSN accounts were optional for games on PC, with this statement changing to an ambiguous "some games" statement[84][85] after players were directed to contact Sony support by Pilestedt.[86] On 4 May, the listing on Steam was updated to disallow sales to 177 territories where PSN is not available.[87]
Pilestedt apologized for the sudden change, stating on Twitter that "I hope we will make it up and regain the trust by providing a continued great game experience".[88] Arrowhead developers stated that they were on the side of the players and one community manager even called for the player base to negatively review the game on Steam,[89] leading to players review bombing the game; as of 4 May, nearly 53% of all posted reviews were negative,[90][91][92] with over 84,000 negative reviews on Steam.[93] Sony announced on May 5, 2024 that they would not be moving forward with the account linking requirements, and promised to work with Arrowhead to find alternate solutions to protect players.[94]
60-day plan
By July 2024, the PC player base dropped significantly, with a reported loss of up to 90% of players on Steam. The player drop was attributed to the PSN account controversy, player frustration with weapon balancing changes and increasingly tougher enemies, as well as bugs and performance issues.[95] In response, Arrowhead announced a 60-day plan to address these issues. In September and October 2024, two major patches were released as part of the 60-day plan, which aimed to re-evaluate weapon and enemy balancing, as well as fix performance issues and bugs. The changes were positively received by the player base, with reviews once again become more positively aligned.[96]
Film adaptation
In January 2025, Sony Pictures announced that they are working on a film based on the game.[97]
