Edited to remove the sony debacle even though its still a very much ongoing problem with HD2

This game has rebound. Ever since its 60 day plan to restore the fun back in HD2. It has superseded all other coop hoard shooters in my eyes. This game is just an absolute joy to play. From the weapons. To the enemies. Everything about this game oozes love and passion from Arrowhead and while they still have some work to do. Especially since its pretty dry on the content updates as of writing. This game is one of my favorite sequels to ever come out from a game. Outstanding game 10/10



Overall. I still love the game. Its incredibly fun. I'm updating it today to let yall know that the above issue I had with the game has mostly disappeared. Once you get into the groove of things. Do some easier missions to farm medals. The progression is fun, fair and worthwhile. It was my initial thoughts when I started that I thought it was going to be a bigger issue than it was. Now with 50+ more hours. I have lots of armor, weapons, and all the strategems. Taking on Helldive is fun, frantic, and very rewarding! If you're down here and reading my update. GET THE GAME!

Original Review

Hoooo boy. After Helldivers released in 2015 and stopped receiving support around 2020. Helldivers 2 rolls up in 2024. While I do enjoy the game and think it is a mark improvement over HD1. It has a glaring issue that make me worry about the future monetization and progression in the game. Lets talk about it.

TLDR: Fun game. Great graphics. Incredibly fun weapons and close air support. Pretty terrible progression loop with its premium and free battlepass.

• Its third person!! After HD1 was top down and had its camera restricted to the average position of every player. HD2 comes by and makes it third person! Its amazing! It puts you real close to the action and its visceral and a giant spectacle. I'm glad they took the Risk of Rain approach and changed the entire perspective. Huge plus!
  
• The enemies! While we dont quite get the Illuminates from HD1. The terminids and the cyborgs return (under the new name automatons) The enemy types have had a face lift and given extra attention and detail. Letting you completely splatter chunks off them when shooting hordes of them with firepower. Hopefully the illuminates make a return as well as some new enemy types or factions!
  
• Strategems! While some dont return from HD1, like vehicles (im aware the mech will be added later but still). Some old and even new strategems arrive. All of them have been given a face lift and more explosive spectacles! The EAT and recoilless rifle are my faves atm but all of the stategems have been nothing short of awesome to watch.
  
• The ragdolls! Holy s**t is it so f**cking funny dude. You get splattered by your teammates cluster bombs and sometimes you get torn to bits. Others youll fly helplessly into a rock, building, enemy. All of its incredibly hilarious and leads to some funny moments.
  
• The Dolphin Dive. Yeah. They added the dolphin dive from black ops 2 to the game. To replace the clunky dive from HD1. Its smooth. Lets you flop around on anything. Its great!

While I do recommend the game. The flaw it has are pretty bad and I do not enjoy, condone, or want to support the monetization if this is the path for HD2's future. Im gonna get the minor stuff out of the way so I can talk more about the main thing I really don't like about the game.

• Zero weapon upgrades. Right now after 10 hours of the game. I have 5 weapons. All of which you cannot upgrade like in HD1 where you used samples to buff them.
  
• Zero strategem upgrades. Now. You "can" upgrade them, but they are incredibly expensive in terms of samples. And are only general buffs applied to groups of strategems i.e shaving off 1 second to the call in timer. Or slightly shorter cooldowns. Nothing like HD1 where you can upgrade specific strategems you like to make them more potent. Its expensive. Not really worth it, and above all, not fun.
  
• No offline! Wtf man? HD1 was offline and now HD2 is online only. So if this game flops. Or in the future when the servers shuts down. Youre SOL until they decide to change it. Which I doubt. All to fuel their microtransaction shop and premium BP and add an anticheat for a coop game.
  
• Terminids. Mainly the Behemoth. On harder difficulties the game will not relent and summon groups of them all over the map. Which isnt bad in it of itself, but they are damn near impossible to kill with normal weapons. Strategems have lengthy cooldowns and since the behemoth constantly tries to charge you. You can't ever get a solid hit on it. Even my recoilless rifle. Which was the behemoths bane in HD1. Boops its nose and tucks it in to bed. So its a wild goose chase around the map as it tries to ram you down. All the other bugs and enemies are fine and even fun! It's just this one I hate to fight.

Progression/battlepass system. Right now. I have just under 10 hours in the game. I have barely gotten to the second page on either pass. You get medals for completing missions. You then use the medals for redeeming rewards in the pass. When you spend enough medals. You unlock the next page. Kinda like fortnites way of doing it with their BPs. Problem is. Its so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ expensive to unlock stuff in the pass. A mission on hard. Nets you 4-6-8 medals. 18 medals total. Not bad right? Well you have to beat all 3 missions tied to those medals. Each mission if you want to maximize all the earnings you get. Takes upwards of 30+ minutes, When you finally get to the pass you find out a weapon is 25 medals! What infuriates me is the premium BP (battlepass) Takes almost double the medals to unlock different armors and weapons. 10 hours and I essentially have nothing to show for it. Maybe that's my fault for not sticking to the regular BP, but it takes me about an hour to unlock 1 weapon then another hour to unlock an armor set. Then the next weapons and armor takes double that time. Then it keeps compounding after that. I had the day off today to be able to grind it. Yet I still have not enough to show for it. If going forward, all unlocks and weapons are gonna be tied to this BP style system. Its going to be incredibly frustrating and slow paced. It will make a lot of players lose interest and not want to bother. Its complete nonsense and I would of rather you went back to HD1 where you made packs and those packs came with stuff right out of the box. Not this BS where you buy a pass. Then grind your life away trying to unlock everything. The final page of the free BP needs 1000+ Medals to unlock the CHANCE to buy the cosmetics in there. Thats absurd. Either raise the rewards for missions. Or reduce the medals for cosmetics and weapons. Such BS.

Overall I really do enjoy the game. The moment to moment action is incredibly fun. Missions are interesting and the weather and map effects are just delightful. I recommend the game full stop to people who havent played the original HD. If youre a veteran from HD1. You will still find this game to be a mark improvement in a lot of ways over HD1. Though like I said at the start. 2 steps forward. 1 step back. This game eventually will be the game we want it to be. Its backed by arrowhead and sony. 2 juggernauts in coop and game development. It will be better. Right now its good. Just needs some better direction from the devs. The devs need to listen to the community that loves the helldivers universe, and the game will be just fine.

Thanks for reading! <3

[h3] Final (hopefully) Update [/h3] Edited to remove the sony debacle even though its still a very much ongoing problem with HD2 This game has rebound. Ever since its 60 day plan to restore the fun back in HD2. It has superseded all other coop hoard shooters in my eyes. This game is just an absolute joy to play. From the weapons. To the enemies. Everything about this game oozes love and passion from Arrowhead and while they still have some work to do. Especially since its pretty dry on the content updates as of writing. This game is one of my favorite sequels to ever come out from a game. Outstanding game 10/10 [h3] Update after 60 hours and over a week of playing it [/h3] Overall. I still love the game. Its incredibly fun. I'm updating it today to let yall know that the above issue I had with the game has mostly disappeared. Once you get into the groove of things. Do some easier missions to farm medals. The progression is fun, fair and worthwhile. It was my initial thoughts when I started that I thought it was going to be a bigger issue than it was. Now with 50+ more hours. I have lots of armor, weapons, and all the strategems. Taking on Helldive is fun, frantic, and very rewarding! If you're down here and reading my update. GET THE GAME! Original Review [h3] Helldivers 2 steps forward. 1 step back [/h3] Hoooo boy. After Helldivers released in 2015 and stopped receiving support around 2020. Helldivers 2 rolls up in 2024. While I do enjoy the game and think it is a mark improvement over HD1. It has a glaring issue that make me worry about the future monetization and progression in the game. Lets talk about it. TLDR: Fun game. Great graphics. Incredibly fun weapons and close air support. Pretty terrible progression loop with its premium and free battlepass. [h3] What I liked! [/h3] [list] [*] Its third person!! After HD1 was top down and had its camera restricted to the average position of every player. HD2 comes by and makes it third person! Its amazing! It puts you real close to the action and its visceral and a giant spectacle. I'm glad they took the Risk of Rain approach and changed the entire perspective. Huge plus! [*] The enemies! While we dont quite get the Illuminates from HD1. The terminids and the cyborgs return (under the new name automatons) The enemy types have had a face lift and given extra attention and detail. Letting you completely splatter chunks off them when shooting hordes of them with firepower. Hopefully the illuminates make a return as well as some new enemy types or factions! [*] Strategems! While some dont return from HD1, like vehicles (im aware the mech will be added later but still). Some old and even new strategems arrive. All of them have been given a face lift and more explosive spectacles! The EAT and recoilless rifle are my faves atm but all of the stategems have been nothing short of awesome to watch. [*] The ragdolls! Holy s**t is it so f**cking funny dude. You get splattered by your teammates cluster bombs and sometimes you get torn to bits. Others youll fly helplessly into a rock, building, enemy. All of its incredibly hilarious and leads to some funny moments. [*] The Dolphin Dive. Yeah. They added the dolphin dive from black ops 2 to the game. To replace the clunky dive from HD1. Its smooth. Lets you flop around on anything. Its great! [/list] [h3] What I dont like [/h3] While I do recommend the game. The flaw it has are pretty bad and I do not enjoy, condone, or want to support the monetization if this is the path for HD2's future. Im gonna get the minor stuff out of the way so I can talk more about the main thing I really don't like about the game. [list] [*] Zero weapon upgrades. Right now after 10 hours of the game. I have 5 weapons. All of which you cannot upgrade like in HD1 where you used samples to buff them. [*] Zero strategem upgrades. Now. You "can" upgrade them, but they are incredibly expensive in terms of samples. And are only general buffs applied to groups of strategems i.e shaving off 1 second to the call in timer. Or slightly shorter cooldowns. Nothing like HD1 where you can upgrade specific strategems you like to make them more potent. Its expensive. Not really worth it, and above all, not fun. [*] No offline! Wtf man? HD1 was offline and now HD2 is online only. So if this game flops. Or in the future when the servers shuts down. Youre SOL until they decide to change it. Which I doubt. All to fuel their microtransaction shop and premium BP and add an anticheat for a coop game. [*] Terminids. Mainly the Behemoth. On harder difficulties the game will not relent and summon groups of them all over the map. Which isnt bad in it of itself, but they are damn near impossible to kill with normal weapons. Strategems have lengthy cooldowns and since the behemoth constantly tries to charge you. You can't ever get a solid hit on it. Even my recoilless rifle. Which was the behemoths bane in HD1. Boops its nose and tucks it in to bed. So its a wild goose chase around the map as it tries to ram you down. All the other bugs and enemies are fine and even fun! It's just this one I hate to fight. [/list] [h3] Now my big problem [/h3] Progression/battlepass system. Right now. I have just under 10 hours in the game. I have barely gotten to the second page on either pass. You get medals for completing missions. You then use the medals for redeeming rewards in the pass. When you spend enough medals. You unlock the next page. Kinda like fortnites way of doing it with their BPs. Problem is. Its so god damn expensive to unlock stuff in the pass. A mission on hard. Nets you 4-6-8 medals. 18 medals total. Not bad right? Well you have to beat all 3 missions tied to those medals. Each mission if you want to maximize all the earnings you get. Takes upwards of 30+ minutes, When you finally get to the pass you find out a weapon is 25 medals! What infuriates me is the premium BP (battlepass) Takes almost double the medals to unlock different armors and weapons. 10 hours and I essentially have nothing to show for it. Maybe that's my fault for not sticking to the regular BP, but it takes me about an hour to unlock 1 weapon then another hour to unlock an armor set. Then the next weapons and armor takes double that time. Then it keeps compounding after that. I had the day off today to be able to grind it. Yet I still have not enough to show for it. If going forward, all unlocks and weapons are gonna be tied to this BP style system. Its going to be incredibly frustrating and slow paced. It will make a lot of players lose interest and not want to bother. Its complete nonsense and I would of rather you went back to HD1 where you made packs and those packs came with stuff right out of the box. Not this BS where you buy a pass. Then grind your life away trying to unlock everything. The final page of the free BP needs 1000+ Medals to unlock the CHANCE to buy the cosmetics in there. Thats absurd. Either raise the rewards for missions. Or reduce the medals for cosmetics and weapons. Such BS. [h3] Closing thoughts [/h3] Overall I really do enjoy the game. The moment to moment action is incredibly fun. Missions are interesting and the weather and map effects are just delightful. I recommend the game full stop to people who havent played the original HD. If youre a veteran from HD1. You will still find this game to be a mark improvement in a lot of ways over HD1. Though like I said at the start. 2 steps forward. 1 step back. This game eventually will be the game we want it to be. Its backed by arrowhead and sony. 2 juggernauts in coop and game development. It will be better. Right now its good. Just needs some better direction from the devs. The devs need to listen to the community that loves the helldivers universe, and the game will be just fine. Thanks for reading! <3