For Arrowhead, you might say life is imitating art in unexpected ways. Its co-op shooter sequel about swarms of killer robots and giant insects has itself been invaded, by a horde of players so large that a fortnight after launch you were lucky to find a space on its straining servers. And while at the time of writing that particular issue seems to have been resolved, like its titular soldiers Arrowhead still has a bug problem to deal with, as connections destabilise and the game’s collective campaign struggles to keep itself up to date.
If the developer might be accused of arriving underprepared, however, the viral spread of Helldivers 2 is richly deserved. There’s also little doubt that its popularity is due in part to the same humbleness that accounts for the slim servers. In a climate where service games often arrive with an aura of entitled arrogance, Arrowhead’s offering appeals because it prioritises its core experience, inserts it into a smartly devised progression structure, and sidesteps exploitative microtransactions. Extra paid content, currently in the form of armour, helmets and capes, feels so peripheral and so acceptably priced that it’s impossible to begrudge.
Narratively, the open-ended campaign is justified by the context of a galactic war fought on two fronts, which easily lends itself to continual adjustments and updates. At launch, we’re tasked with claiming two bug-infested planets a couple of solar systems out from ‘Super Earth’, with each accomplished mission adding tiny increments to a completion percentage that measures the combined work of the playerbase. The first planet falls after a few days, which opens up new ones farther away. Meanwhile, the robots make their presence felt on the opposite side of the galaxy, and the war effort extends to cover that front, too. Then, as our pushback gathers momentum, the bots attack planets closer to home, triggering defensive missions on those worlds. Already, the notion of a ‘road map’ for Helldivers 2 seems redundant, as the potential is visible on the game’s own galactic chart.