Helldivers 2… even if this game has derailed everything
I hold dear in the past two weeks, THIS is what gaming should be all about, not cynical bloated
“quadruple A” slop, but the type of passion project that comes out of nowhere to remind the
decision makers at the top of the gaming industry that if you just make something fun, something
that doesn’t insist on talking down to its audience every chance it gets, then people will
play it, they’ll even actively want to support it, and it doesn't need a $2,300 million dollar
budget. Don’t get me wrong, Helldivers 2 is no indie game, at least not really, Sony funded
the team who made this, the difference though is that they let the small team of creatives who
made the top-down original Helldivers make the follow up they wanted to, and within a few hours
of playing, Helldivers 2 reignited my love for the type of game I honestly thought I’d left behind.
If you look at my channel, I’m often all about the story, but here, well… things are simple - you
are a Helldiver, an expendable piece of slit who is just one small cog in the last line of offense
against terminid and automaton scum, and with your team it’s your responsibility, nay your duty, to
spread “managed democracy” from planet to planet, and by spread democracy I just mean dropping
in and killing everything that moves while completing a few objectives like, well, blowing
things up, but blowing things up for freedom. The satire of Helldivers is in your face, it’s
not trying to be subtle or all that deep, it’s not trying to wow you with its cleverness like
I feel so many games are desperate to do lately, it’s just trying to be fun, which unsurprisingly
hasn’t stopped people on Twitter from getting mad and putting out “you guys are scaring me because
you don’t realize the game is satire” PSAs when it’s really the type of person who would post
something like that who actually needs the PSA - we all know it’s satire, that’s the joke and
it’s a game not a political stance, now please, shut up we’re having fun forcibly spreading
democracy across the galaxy. The truth is, unless you ate a ton of paint chips as a kid,
there’s no missing the joke in Helldivers, I mean if you take two seconds to read anything
during the missions you’ll quickly piece together the real story, like how in this “managed
democracy” if the name didn’t already tip you off, well, your votes don’t count because
an algorithm picks the winner and- Uh for the official record, I would like
to issue a solemn, heartfelt apology and formally take back what I said about Super
Earth’s managed Democracy - rest assured, every vote is of course counted equally,
and please feel free to get in contact with the Ministry of Truth for more
information on election integrity. You know, the devs, Arrowhead Studios, have tapped
into something with Helldivers 2 that’s kind of becoming a lost art, an ancient practice forged by
our ancestors that may soon be forgotten, because the thing is laugh I’m exaggerating but the thing
is, Helldivers 2 just wants to be a fun game before anything else, it has its priorities well
in place. I have no idea if this will resonate with anyone considering what I usually cover on
this channel, but not since Call of Duty Zombies, like the best era of it for me, have I been so
endlessly addicted to anything co-op. I’m usually a solo gamer, that’s just what I tend to like
and this game can be played solo which we’ll talk about, but Helldivers has brought me right back
to wanting to squad up at every possible chance, responsibilities be danged, and speaking of
squads… one thing you kinda have to get used to in Helldivers 2 is friendly fire… whether
that be your friends killing you, or, well… Friendly fire becomes much less of a problem
as you get gud if you weren’t already, but for my first 30 hours or so I was dying from my
teammates way more often than from, you know who was actually supposed to be killing me, even if
some, I stress SOME of those deaths were my fault: The most messed up part of this video is that
somehow, someway, after borderline glazing the game for the past few minutes, I’ve still been
underselling the best thing about Helldivers 2, and also, admittedly, I’ve kind of been ignoring
the few big issues it absolutely does have, plus I want to talk about that premium battle pass,
which is a weirdly touchy subject for some that I think has been getting exaggerated in almost every
review of the game I’ve seen. Before that though, I do wanna take a quick second to thank our
sponsor today, Honkai Star Rail. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m kinda picky with games,
so when game sponsors reach out… well I always turn them down unless it’s something I already
like, like for example that Plague Tale video I did. Honkai Star Rail was a similar situation- I’d
heard of it because just a few months ago it won best mobile game at the Game Awards, and because
it’s an RPG that’s free-to-play and also on PC and PS5, well my interest was piqued at that point and
as it turned out… the game is actually really fun, and if you were ever going to jump in, now is the
time. The 2.0 update was just rolled out which completely revamps 2023’s mobile game of the year
into something even better - it added a brand new world to explore, Penacony, plus a ton of quality
of life updates and new characters to unlock, including the 5 Star Black Swan who I
somehow managed to draw almost instantly even though she’s apparently very rare, and
also Sparkle, who I don’t have yet. Anyway, as part of the 2.0 update you can actually get
10 free draws to unlock those characters by just logging in for a few days in a row, and
if you download the game by using my link in the description, you’ll also be able to use
my redemption code for 50 free Stellar Jade, which can also be used to try and
draw those new characters. Anyway, consider giving the game a try, and thanks to
Honkai Star Rail for sponsoring this video. Bugs. Helldivers 2 has quite a few ‘em
- both in the obvious, not funny way, like yeah haha the game has insects, but
also, in my experience at least it has a few of the other kind too. Like needing to die
just to be able to reload or switch weapons: That one happened several times, both to me
and who I was playing with. Another example, one of the main objectives where you need
to evacuate civilians would consistently fall apart where the civs would just
get stuck on nothing and would then, tragically, need to be put down
so democracy could prevail: There’s nothing overly game breaking now
that the server issues have been fixed, although now that I think about it the game did
crash on me a couple of times, but what I’ll say is that if you’re playing this game with friends,
every single moment ends up being entertaining, even the bugs, and the teamwork required to
complete some of the more complex objectives on higher difficulties is what I loved most
about Helldivers. Trying to play solo though, or even with randoms… well, if you like gambling,
you’ll love trying to play Helldivers 2 without a set squad because you might have fun, or it might
just turn into a complete feeping nightmare waste of your time. If you’re gonna play with randoms,
either host the game or risk getting kicked and losing all your progress, and if you truly
insist on playing fully by yourself… godspeed for the higher difficulties, because this
game was not balanced for the solo player. Y’know, I really think Helldivers 2
is gonna have a long healthy life, partially because from what I understand the devs
already have a bunch of new content ready to go, but also because, on the topic of balancing,
there’s a ton of unused content in the game right now. What do I mean? Well, as Helldivers currently
stands, almost everyone is using the same loadout, and while that might not sound like a reason to
be optimistic for the future, what I’m getting at is that 95% of the weapons and the stratagems
you can call down for support… well, they’re just collecting dust waiting for a buff because
the balancing in Helldivers is… I mean, it’s not great. The best weapons and stratagems are so much
better than everything else that there are maybe 3 guns total that see any action, cough the breaker,
and of the 50ish stratagems you can call down, maybe 6 or 7 are ever used by anyone who isn’t
just starting out, and what I’d like to do here is beg the Helldivers community: please, don’t
ask the devs to nerf the good slit, I don’t know who’s with me here but I hate it when devs
start nerfing things in games like this. Instead, why don’t we buff everything that’s currently
mediocre instead of gutting what’s already fun, because there’s a goldmine of ways
to freshen up the meta right there. There’s also a second goldmine currently in
Helldivers, or at least a potential goldmine depending on how player friendly this
game stays, because Helldivers 2 does have microtransactions - something I’m usually
not a fan of in games you have to pay for. If a game is free-to-play I couldn’t possibly care
less, that’s how they can afford to exist, but when you’re charging $60, $70 and then thinking
you can get cute with $20 skins cough that new Suicide Squad game, well, that’s where I draw the
line. If you’re about to say “well Helldivers 2 isn’t $70” you’re absolutely right - it’s not a
full price game, it’s 40 for the standard version, and the main draw of the deluxe edition upgrade
is just instant access to a second war bond, which is this game’s version of a battle
pass, it’s how you unlock new weapons, armor and well, pretty much everything other than
the strategems you call down. There’s a huge, 9 tier standard war bond that’s free to
everyone and is the better of the two by far, and then there’s a separate and small 3
tiered deluxe version, which is called the ‘Steeled Veterans’ warbond, aka the ‘every
armor set turns you into an amputee’ warbond: Here’s my take, because I’ve seen a lot of
reviewers complaining about the microtransactions without mentioning that everything you can buy
in-game with actual money can also easily be earned by just playing and using the credits you
either find on missions or are given in the free war bond, and the only thing credits are used for
in Helldivers 2 is either to buy the deluxe war bond or to buy individual items in the ‘shop’,
which also cost credits or real money to buy credits. You’re using other “non-premium” currency
to unlock weapons and strategems and most armor, so there’s literally nothing else to use those
credits you earn on, it’s why the game gives you them, and currently it’s beyond generous because
even the individual shop items which you’d expect to be priced stupidly high are instead pretty
attainable, by like the 20 hour mark when I was still figuring out the game I already had
enough earned credits to buy whatever I wanted and more in the shop, I just didn’t because as
things currently stand it’s the free battle pass that has almost all of the best equipment and
I honestly kind of regret most of my investment into the premium one. It doesn’t really at all
feel like Helldivers 2 tries to lock the really tempting items behind a grind or access to your
wallet, because if you’re gonna a fair amount, like I have it’s been a borderline addiction
the past two weeks my life is a feeping ruin, then at the moment there’s 0 reason to open your
wallet after paying for the game itself unless you’re just super impatient, though you might
notice I keep using words like ‘currently’ when talking about this because this entire section
could easily age horribly. With how successful the game is, you just never know - it’s all love
and positivity right now because this game is awesome with a hopefully very bright future,
but… I don’t know, I guess we’ll see, I just feel like we’ve all been burned too many times by
other games to take anything as a given. Anyway, if you aren’t already, play Helldivers 2, it
kicks ass, but that’s everything from me - if you enjoyed consider leaving a like as that’s
how YouTube decides what content is worthy, I am aware this was a very different type of
game for me to cover, but if you’re interested in more from me feel free to subscribe - if
you can believe it we’re coming up on the channel’s 50th overall video, this was number 48.
Thanks to my patrons as always for their support, keep an eye out guys for something there
really soon, and that’s all - see ya.
