Summary
If there’s one thingHelldivers 2has excelled at thus far, it’s emergent storytelling. Players' actions or inactions in-game have a real effect on the narrative unfolding in the Second Galactic War. When the Helldivers destroyed Meridia and left a gaping, dangerous black hole in its wake, it was hard to see it as anything but a massive attempt at foreshadowing something sinister on the horizon. But even before any horrible, democracy-threatening alien menace can come from it, the campaign against the Meridia supercolony forced theHelldivers 2community to grapple with a challenge more terrifying than any bug or bot: actual teamwork.
In order todestroy Meridia and the massive terminid colonyon it, the game introduced a new mission type to players called Dark Fluid. Essentially, the mission entailed installing planet-destroying devices on the doomed, bug-infested planet. This dark fluid, which would eventually make Meridia collapse into a giant black hole, was called in by Helldivers, placed into drills, and then seeped into the planet’s surface. The tricky part was defending the drills, which tested how players worked together like never before.
Helldivers 2 Needs More Missions Like Dark Fluid
While it’s seemingly unlikely that players will be destroying more planets anytime soon, the dark fluid missions were a breath of fresh air forHelldivers 2’s gameplay loop. Players were met with the usualonslaught of endless terminids, but they were also faced with the unique challenge of their drills being susceptible to friendly fire in addition to enemy attacks. This meant that they were hard-pressed to deal with the insectoid alien menace while avoiding using some of their most effective and explosive strategies for fear of destroying the drill themselves.
This was the first instance of the game forcing players to think outside the box and use team-based tactics to complete the mission. In most other mission formats, there’s no real penalty for spamming orbital or eagle strikes on a target, running for cover, and letting air support rack up kill after kill. Additionally, the spread-out nature of most objectives hasgiven rise to aHelldivers 2metawhere some players find it more effective to split up to cover more ground, effectively turning what’s supposed to be a coordinated squad of soldiers into four standalone sci-fi Rambos.
The most effective Helldivers were coordinating with each other in the pre-game lobby, deciding who was going to bring what weapons and strategies, and opting into less popular tools that eschew outright damage for more subtle crowd control. In favor of the popular and destructiveEagle 500Kg Bomband railgun strikes, successful players were thinking outside the box and bringing the EMS strikes/turrets and themassively underrated Patriot mechsto slow the bugs and hold the line while avoiding errant explosions. The punishing difficulty of the mission itself meant that only teams with intense coordination and cooperation had any hope whatsoever of making it to extraction.
Helldivers 2 Should Encourage More Teamwork
The community loves the chaos that an average helldive can escalate into, but for big, story-moving missions like the dark fluid operation,Arrowhead should keep testing theHelldivers 2playerbaseby making them come together and galvanizing into the cohesive squads they’re meant to be. As punishing as the dark fluid missions were, completing one felt like a true accomplishment unlike anything in the game to date. If a team extracted from Meridia, they knew it was because of their individual skill and teamwork that made victory happen.
Helldivers 2features stratagems and weaponry that often fall to the wayside in favor of whatever is topping a tier list on any given day. If Arrowhead stays the course and keeps making players continually evolve strategies and work together (and avoidingnon-terminid related bugs in future missions), it can keep theHelldivers 2experience fresh and exciting for a very long time.
Helldivers 2
WHERE TO PLAY
Do you believe in freedom? Can you stand in the face of oppression – and defend the defenceless? Wage war for peace. Die for democracy.Join forces with up to three friends and wreak havoc on an alien scourge threatening the safety of your home planet, Super Earth, in this multiplayer co-op shooter for PS5 and PC from Arrowhead Game Studios.Step into the boots of the Helldivers, an elite class of soldiers whose mission is to spread peace, liberty and Managed Democracy using the biggest, baddest and most explosive tools in the galaxy.Helldivers don’t go planet side without proper backup, but it’s up to you to decide how and when to call it in. Not only do you have a host of superpowered primary weapons and customizable loadouts, you also have the ability to call on stratagems during play.Helldivers 2 features Arrowhead’s best cooperative gameplay yet. Collaboration will be vital: Teams will synergize on loadouts, strategize their approach for each mission and complete objectives together.1Enlist in Super Earth’s premier military peacekeeping force today. We are heroes… we are legends… WE ARE HELLDIVERS.
