RPS Advent Calendar 2024, December 13

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is it. Helldiverse 2!

Graham: Did he have a weird, funny friend who one day cut his long hair, started wearing shirts, and posted all his Warhammer pictures? He is becoming a “grown-up man”, and – quite by accident – he has now found a lovely girlfriend. We should all keep our mouths shut until he realizes for himself that she is awful.

That’s how I thought about Helldiverse 2. Arrowhead, famous top-downers, slapstick, friendly fire filled chimps. Magicka And the first HelldiversShave off the ‘rough’ edges that make up their personality. Now they were doing an over-the-shoulder shooter just like everyone else. Sonny was now their girlfriend.

The first joy of Helldiverse 2 was discovering that my fears were misplaced. It’s amazing how much of the studio’s personality comes through in the slapstick, the friendly fire, the deliberate controls that beg you to drop your weapon.

The second was that she was not so receptive to the live ministry favored by her new peers. Yes, you can unlock weapons and cosmetics with in-game or real money Battle Pass or two, but your starting gear is basically as good as anything you get later. I’ve played dozens of hours with the first five tools I’ve unlocked, and later unlocks usually give me a brief novelty before moving on to the next one.

Helldiverse 2’s missions are also perfectly bite-sized. Each planet drops you on a planet full of aliens or robots – any planet that can be said to be overrun by its inhabitants – and you’re on a mission to transmit a signal, speak, or destroy some big eggs. You run around, accidentally (or on purpose) annoy your friends for a bit, cue some scenes from Starship Troopers, call in an airstrike or five, and 15 minutes later you’re covered in egg goo and highfiving. Your companion will return to your spaceship. That said, I never felt like I was lagging behind on any unlocking curve, and I could fit a Helldiverse 2 session into my adult life pretty well, doing a couple missions with a friend while the kid slept. In the year In 2024, there are few blockbuster multiplayer games where that happens.

Sometimes that friend? Fast forward a few years and you realize that Posh’s girlfriend is fine. She is now his beautiful wife. And their dining table? Covered with Warhammer figures.

Nick: I waited a while to play Helldiverse 2, and what surprised me the most was how simulation-y it felt to play – a far cry from the arcadey horde shooter I had in mind. Disadvantages. The way you need to pick and choose your reloads. Strength of the fight. By making actual matches feel like something serious, Arrowhead allows its humor to shine in other areas, where getting hit with a drop if you’re out of a tight firefight is hilarious. Really clever stuff.

Edwin: I still love playing this game solo. It has all the ingredients for a great sandbox stealth game in the MG5 tradition – I feel like all they need to do is tweak the hatching, but I’m sure it’s not that easy in practice. I’m also… interested in how you play the Fascist Eternal War element as a live service metagame, inspired by tabletop role-playing. I think we should start reporting failures of Major Order as wins as if we were automatons fans. Every good propaganda machine needs a thrashing pirate radio station.

Ed. One of my favorite in-game ‘things’ this year is the 380mm turret, which blasts the massive space on earth-shattering shells for what seems like an absolute age. There is something very satisfying about seeing a machine fortress come to an end. I like to call my friends for any purpose (mostly small) just to really annoy them. I’m shy, I know.

Brandy: You are evil, Ed. But it’s the kind of evil that I love. I’m not as enamored with Helldiverse 2 as most people, but I’ve played it enough to appreciate the comedy of diving away from your friend’s eager cannon barracks. Friendly fire is always funny in video games.

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