Should I play Helldivers 2?

So, for a while now, I’ve played a lot of Earth Defense Force 4.1 and Deep Rock Galactic – and I really enjoy those games they’re fun and unique and interesting, and the humour is good, but from time to time you wanna play something else, right?

And well, here is a new release that has gotten a lot of traction to the point that the servers are struggling and people keep themselves logged in overnight to be able to play the game in the morning: Helldivers 2!

A friend asked me if I’m interested in playing it and frankly, I just barely know anything about the game, so I’m hesitant. I can’t just make a 40€ purchase for a game with microtransactions without knowing what I’m getting into.

I brought up Deep Rock Galactic earlier because from what people told me it’s got similar vibes. I brought up Earth Defense Force because apparently, the core gameplay is the same as in EDF. Fight big baddies for a cause and complete missions of ever-increasing scales… and then you do everything against on higher difficulties, I guess.

This information is not something I got from the store page. The store page is very much not taking itself seriously at all. Rather than telling me what the game is like and what you do in this fully-priced live-service game, the developers are instead hellbent on selling me that this is for democracy.

Look, I get it, the joke is that it’s not about democracy at all and that we’re the bad guys. I get that that’s the joke but just please tell me what the actual game is like.

But looking at positive reviews, most of them appear to be memes. There are lots and lots and lots of memes in there and I just have to specifically select negative reviews to learn what the game is actually about (and to hear about what’s wrong with it).

So, mind you, I haven’t played the game yet. I haven’t bought it. I’m not sure if I’ll buy it anytime soon either since 40 bucks is a lot to ask for when I don’t know anything about the game…

Issues that negative reviews brought up

For starters, the servers… they suck. They are burning. People aren’t getting into the game… and even when you’re in the game, you get hard-kicked if you disconnect (either due to your own internet or more commonly due to the server issues). So, no grace period to reconnect, no ability to come back into the game, no anything. Once you’re gone, you’re gone for good.

On top of that, the game features a lot of crashes. People are reporting that they’ve played missions for easily 30 minutes only to then get booted from the game due to a crash… all progress lost in the process. This sucks. 

Imagine working at your job and being sent home early by your boss… and now your boss doesn’t want to pay you because you didn’t work the entire shift. Helldivers 2 has you crash the game and you suddenly have to do it all over again with no compensation. Fun.

But that’s not the worst as chances are high that you won’t even get back into the game due to the servers being at full capacity. This game is published by PlayStation PC LLC btw. They somehow didn’t expect this nor did they prepare for it. Oh well.

The bigger issue that comes with the game is that you have to grind a lot. To get specific weapons, you need specific materials. The better the weapon, the better the material. Fair, right? Well, the game’s difficulty spikes a lot and on top of having to deal with crashes and server issues, you also can just get killed instantly when an explosion ragdolls you and when you get shot with no chance to retaliate or dodge while you’re in this ragdoll state.

So, to get better gear to make it easier to get through these missions, you need to grind borderline unplayable missions at incredibly hard difficulties… and even then, that’s not enough.

You start out with a lot of variety but as you move up the difficulty levels, you begin to realise that you’re getting shoehorned into specific builds. The build variety is gone. If you don’t have this specific loadout, you’re trolling.

As such, a lot of people do not recommend the game despite having sunk in forty to sixty, at times even more, hours into the title already. Clearly, it’s a great game when it’s good… but even more clearly, it’s an abysmal experience when the game doesn’t let you actually play it.

Can I get a demo?

As previously mentioned, the devs do not deem it necessary to explain the game, at all. Rather, you just have to either buy the game at full price and see if it works for you… or you don’t.

Since I don’t know what game this is aside from being a “3rd Person Shooter”, I’m very inclined to believe that there is nothing to this game other than shooting… and democracy.

Strategy? Tactics? Grind? Customization? Classes? Playtime? Gameplay Loop? Anything?

Look, the game probably is great but I’m not sure if my PC can run it (if I do get into a server). If I were to buy the game right now and I’d have to wait two hours in a queue to get into it, I wouldn’t be able to refund it if my poor PC cannot handle the title or if I personally just end up disliking it.

That would mean 40 bucks would go down the drain. At least give me a demo that lets me play one mission solo to get a taste of what is to come. Can’t be too much to ask for, right?

The game itself is a live service title, so it will receive further updates in the future in the form of “seasons”, similar to League of Legends, Destiny 2, and Deep Rock Galactic, I guess.

But aside from that, I’m not convinced that this is a full release worthy of said price tag. Sure, future updates can go a long way in creating variety, adding content and making a game fun for a long time but live-service titles don’t have a great track record as a model. How am I supposed to know that the servers won’t just get taken offline within a year or two?

There is always a risk with live service titles that the games won’t get supported anymore in the future. At the moment, I’m gravitating towards not purchasing it unless of course some of y’all give me some insights into what this game actually is and whether I should play it… but the longer I wait for a sale or more information, the higher the chance will be that it gets taken down shortly after.

Imagine buying a game and it goes offline… or rather suddenly unplayable. That’d be horrible, no? 

Not just for game preservation and that stuff but also for the sake of property. You don’t anything these days anyway. If your Steam account is gone, you don’t have any games. Nobody cares, apparently… but in this case, even with your account intact, you’ll own nothing once the servers give in.

With all that said, the game apparently also runs anticheat software that can cause further issues and the game balance is whack. 

The server stuff is annoying but bound to get fixed eventually… but then there are also microtransactions in a fully-priced game which I find incredibly iffy.

This reminds me a ton of Babylon’s Fall, actually, the 70€-priced game by SqEnix and Platinum Games that didn’t work correctly but already had battle passes, skins and loot boxes in place. Helldivers 2 apparently already has a premium battle pass and other microtransactions inside of it but it crashes frequently like an incredibly early Early Access game.

Long story short, does anyone know what this game is? The developers really do not want to tell me as they’re too busy retelling the same joke about liberty and democracy. The positive reviews further play into this, leaving people who genuinely wanna know if this game is good in the dark.

Would love to hear more! So, tell me. Should I play Helldivers 2?

This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.

If you see this article anywhere else other than Indiecator.org… then this article has been stolen. Please let me know of this via E-Mail. Other than that, feel free to stop by my Twitch streams!