HELLDIVERS™ Dive Harder Edition

not as good as helldivers 2, obviously, but its a really solid game overall. it has good graphics, low system requirements, the gameplay is fun, but there are a few bugs in the game. My laptop is an absolute potato, and it can run it at 30fps even in the most extreme situations.
though i wish it did have some helldivers 2 features, i also wish that helldivers 2 gets some features from this game, like the upgrading of weapons. like you can make your default gun stronger. i wish that upgrading your guns makes it into the game in a more meaningful way than just ship modules, like actual upgrades to individual guns. but thats more about helldivers 2 than 1.
got it on sale, definitely worth the $9 i spent for the base game and all the dlc.

Played this with a friend one night after getting it on sale and it was fun. The friendly fire aspect is a bit annoying as we had this tool that kept ganking us at every opportunity until he walked in front of the tank another player was using with no mobs around and got ganked himself. That was fun.

Otherwise this is pretty decent and is still very active. It didn't really capture either my buddy nor I and I liked it well enough to maybe revisit it someday. Would I recommend this as a co-op game? Yes. Would I recommend this as a solo game? Nope.

Chaotically fun.

If you’ve ever dreamed of diving headfirst into a frenetic, galaxy-spanning war where teamwork isn’t just encouraged—it’s survival—then Helldivers: Dive Harder is your interstellar calling.

This explosive sequel (or enhanced edition) to the beloved top-down shooter cranks everything to 11, delivering a relentlessly thrilling experience that blends strategy, chaos, and camaraderie into one unforgettable package.

Whether you’re a veteran of the original or a fresh recruit, Dive Harder is a triumphant ode to cooperative gaming that deserves a permanent spot in your library.

Gameplay: Precision Meets Pandemonium

At its core, Helldivers: Dive Harder is a masterstroke of tactical gameplay. Every mission drops you and up to three allies onto hostile alien worlds teeming with grotesque bugs, cyborg monstrosities, and enigmatic Illuminate forces.

The controls are razor-sharp, demanding precision as you maneuver through swarms of enemies, deploy stratagems (game-changing support abilities), and juggle objectives under relentless pressure.

What sets Dive Harder apart is its unforgiving yet fair difficulty: friendly fire is always on, turning every airstrike, turret placement, or misplaced bullet into a hilarious or heart-stopping moment. This forces players to communicate, plan, and execute with military discipline—or face glorious, explosive failure.

The stratagem system shines here, letting you customize loadouts with orbital strikes, mech suits, shield generators, and more. Each mission type—from escorting survivors to launching nukes—feels distinct, and procedural elements keep encounters fresh. The adrenaline rush of barely escaping a planet’s surface as it detonates beneath your squad is unmatched.

Visuals and Sound: A Symphony of Sci-Fi Splendor

Dive Harder elevates the original’s aesthetic with lush, dynamic environments. Alien jungles pulse with bioluminescent flora, icy tundras glare under harsh suns, and desert wastelands swirl with oppressive dust storms. The art style balances gritty militarism with a tongue-in-cheek Starship Troopers vibe, embracing over-the-top patriotism and absurdity.

Sound design is equally stellar. The roar of a Charger beetle charging your position, the mechanical whirr of a Cyborg Hulk, and the piercing shrieks of Illuminate drones create an immersive soundscape. The soundtrack, with its booming orchestral marches, amplifies every heart-pounding moment, making even routine missions feel like epic last stands.

Progression and Customization: Gear Up for Glory

The progression system in Dive Harder is deeply rewarding. Completing missions earns you XP, requisition slips, and samples to unlock new weapons, perks, and stratagems. Whether you prefer flamethrowers, sniper rifles, or arc throwers, there’s a playstyle for everyone.

Cosmetic customization lets you deck out your Helldiver in patriotic colors, capes, and helmets, fostering a sense of pride (and friendly rivalry) among squads.

The game’s “meta” campaign adds a layer of depth, as the global community fights to liberate sectors of the galaxy. Your victories contribute to the collective war effort, creating a living, breathing universe that evolves with each update.

Multiplayer: Where Bonds Are Forged in Fire

This is where Dive Harder truly ascends. Playing solo is possible but not recommended—the magic lies in coordinating with friends or strangers. Voice chat erupts with frantic callouts, laughter, and the occasional horrified scream as a misplaced grenade wipes the team.

The seamless drop-in/drop-out system ensures the action never stops, and cross-play support unites PC and console players in the fight for Super Earth.

Community events and seasonal challenges keep the player base engaged, while the shared struggle against ever-adapting enemies fosters camaraderie. Few games capture the “us against the universe” spirit as powerfully as Helldivers.

Replayability: Infinite Battles, Infinite Fun

With procedurally generated objectives, dynamic difficulty scaling, and three distinct enemy factions requiring different strategies, no two missions feel the same.

Higher difficulties like “Helldive” demand near-perfect teamwork, offering bragging rights and rare rewards. Daily challenges, hidden lore, and the ever-shifting galactic front ensure there’s always a reason to suit up again.

Conclusion: For Democracy, Liberty, and Pure Fun

Helldivers: Dive Harder isn’t just a game—it’s a celebration of cooperative chaos. It challenges you to be better, to trust your squad, and to embrace the beautiful madness of war.

With its polished gameplay, stunning presentation, and endless content, it’s a rare gem that rewards skill, creativity, and camaraderie. Whether you’re strategizing over a cup of liber-tea or laughing at a teammate’s “accidental” mortar strike, every moment feels earned and unforgettable.

[h2]Strap on your cape, Helldiver. The galaxy needs you. DIVE HARDER![h2/]

Rating: 10/10 – A near-perfect co-op experience that sets the gold standard for teamwork-driven shooters.

The OG Helldivers was super fun, but the top-down view is trash. Glad HD2 fixed that.

I just destroyed the enemy, myself, my allies and the objective with a single airstrike... We've all been liberated successfully!

It's time for LiberTEA

Always a great time even after MANY wars and years.

Mid game, some contents are locked behind dlcs and HD1 can be very punishing for new players without dlcs. Camera system is annoying as well.
Also, certain cool missions are not alway unlocked because thats how the galactic war is in HD1.
Just get HD2 if you can and skip this game to be honest.

Helldivers 1 holds a special place in my heart from my PS Vita days, and revisiting it now shows why this top-down shooter deserves recognition even in the shadow of its popular sequel.

The game's audiovisual presentation punches well above its weight. The soundtrack is genuinely phenomenal—somehow managing to outshine even Helldivers 2's excellent score. The sound design creates a distinct charm that holds up remarkably well for a 2015 release.

Gameplay-wise, it's reductive but not entirely wrong to call this "Helldivers 2 but top-down" or "Alien Swarm with stratagem mechanics." You beam down to planets, complete operations, try to avoid scout detection (and inevitably fail), then frantically battle waves of enemies. Where Helldivers 1 truly shines is in its controlled chaos—it's brutally difficult and occasionally unfair, but that's part of the appeal. You genuinely have to earn your victories and upgrades.

The vehicle diversity deserves special mention. For a game of this scope, the variety of tools at your disposal is impressive and adds significant tactical depth.

Perhaps most remarkable is Arrowhead's commitment to the game. While traditional content updates have ceased, the galactic war continues automatically, with servers still running and a dedicated community fighting on. In an era where publishers routinely abandon games after a year or two, this level of support is commendable. This truly is a democracy!

However, the progression system has significant flaws. Many unlocks are tied to specific planets, difficulties, and enemy factions. If you join during a period when certain factions aren't active in the galactic war, you might be unable to unlock items for extended periods. This creates frustrating progression barriers that feel arbitrary.

The DLC approach is also problematic. While currently affordable, some items feel less like optional content and more like necessary purchases—the snow boots that allow normal movement speed on snow planets being the prime example. This crosses the line from optional content to practically mandatory purchases.

Verdict? Despite its flaws, Helldivers 1 remains a tremendously fun experience. If you enjoy Alien Swarm or Helldivers 2, you'll likely have an absolute blast with this chaotic, challenging top-down shooter. Super Earth still needs you, soldier!

Lots of fun, lots of chaos. Very different from Helldivers 2 in terms of gameplay. Id like a bit more in the way of accessibility settings, I easily lose which character I am when playing multiplayer, and it's very hard to see my cursor. A slight highlight would fix both of those problems, but I can understand why the cursor is the way it is on mouse and keyboard given that console players dont get nearly the same level of precision in aim, especially before firing. The missions are relatively short, about 10-20 minutes for most. Your entire team is bound together, you share the same screen. Because of this, teamwork is far more essential than in Helldivers 2, especially on higher difficulties. You all have to go to the same place at the same time, there is no splitting up. You will die a lot, no matter the difficulty. A significant portion of that will be friendly fire, through no significant fault of anyone. 8/10 game, its really really fun. My favorite part is that you can take 4 of the same stratagem and do silly things, like 4 eagle strafing runs. Cant do that in Helldivers 2 right now.

>hop into game with friends
>see that you can have a antique rifle
>use in loadout
>drop into a mission
>kill friends with said antique rifle
>die to charger
>peak cinema

Bonefied Classic, great controller support and fun for local play as well!

wish there was gas bombs so i could gas those damn bugs

Very fun. The game is a bit older, but this is fine, because it means it will run on my computer. I like how the games is based on team work. It's really hard if you try to do the higher levels alone. I would recommend, and I would buy Helldivers 2, but my PC can't run it.

Great game

Great game ruined by ridiculous camera being bound across all 4 players. Even when playing with only 2 players and staying close together we can hardly see a few meters in front of us and the patrols are always detecting us off screen and triggering the alarm. Even when we are all playing on separate computers the camera stays centered on all players ensuring that we can never see the enemies off screen while they can see us perfectly. Trying to stay close together only helps us to see a tiny bit further and ensures we will friendly fire and 1 shot each other.

For Super Earth!

Great game

Helldivers 1 is insane. It's the most intense top-down co-op game I've ever played. Despite it coming out nearly ten years ago, it's still fun, good looking, and mechanically sound. I honestly can't think of a more well balanced game this old. Despite the recent cut off of support due to the elephant in the room, it's still loads of fun, and offers something different than its sequel. Even if you've played Helldivers 2, I would still recommend this game.

You will not be able to play on higher difficulties, you will get sucked into spending real money buying the DLC thinking gear will make a difference, It wont. You will notice maps are easier to solo with stealth until a point where it becomes impossible to stealth and look for mines. People join at higher levels and split the screen because it dosent give host priority. If host runs you off the map because you like to join matches and not follow other people, you should die! Instead of having one stubborn person ruin the entire play through for three other people who know how to run in the same place without shooting each other.

if you like top down war simulator is here

Original Helldivers. amazing game. 10/10

Helldivers 2, great. Helldivers 1, not as good but still great

Arrowhead accidentally created the most satisfying unintended dodge mechanic in all of gaming history (search melee dodging). This single mechanic lets experienced players dance across the battlefield in glorious fashion, dodging any and every unit at the edge of their blades. Very sad not to see this implemented as an actual feature in the sequel.

That, alongside some tactical know-how and ai pattern recognition and manipulation (all gained from experience) makes players out to be nigh unstoppable in Helldiver's ''seemingly'' unforgiving difficulty levels.

Players are under the unfortunate impression that they are reliant on the in-game stratagems and weapons in order to complete their missions when that could not be further from the truth. They are simply quality of life items to help manage whatever players struggle with during a mission, but missions are fully doable with nothing but a pistol if they can manage not dumping all their fire at the first enemy they see.

Which is why it's so saddening to see that the game incentivizes ''meta'' loadouts by not letting there be a weapon-lock option along with several modifiers for hosts to spice up their hosted lobbies with (which should have been perfectly doable considering it exists in the cheater-infested proving grounds that noone plays anyway. Still salty that they stripped swords away from us.)

Phenomenal game that should absolutely NOT be skipped over in light of the sequel's success.

Just get the second helldivers and skip this mess. Thought everything would be attainable through gameplay like the second one. Apparently you actually have to buy dlc just to get things in this one. Yikes.

Kind of boring when solo. I'm not a fan of strategems. It's probably okay in multiplayer.

good game, best with friends

As someone who went backwards from HD2 to HD1, I surprisingly enjoyed the elder Uncle on its own, but more so as someone who has enjoyed the world created by Arrowhead, and wanted more from it.

I loved how there are many enemies, objectives, weapons, bosses!, and stratagems yet to be introduced but exist here. There's a codex in the game, and special challenges you can do as well. While a much simpler game with its 2D isometric genre, I actually enjoyed the much quicker missions, the fact you do not need a constant internet connection! if solo, and it runs on anything. I played a good bit on my steam deck and it was great.

Unlike HD2, which has a war that has continued since its released, HD1's war resets after total victory or total loss. I believe it has already reset at least once since I purchased the game over a month ago. This does mean there is a lot of content that relies on the day you log in. On our first login, the Terminids and Cyborgs (Automotons) had been defeated, so only the Illuminate front was available. There is also home planets to assault, and capital cities to defend, but again, these are time dependent. So you may get quite restricted on content depending on when you play.

Unlike HD2, HD1's progression is based on old fashioned methods of leveling up all your equipment or buying them through DLC's, including primary weapons, stratagems, and vehicles. This is through picking up samples and leveling up your character. This bypasses all the currencies of HD2, but does make all the weapons feel underpowered until you grind samples. Once I learned that, I focused on equipment to find more and grind, but it takes some time, especially if you want to try different loadouts.

If you are familiar with HD2, you will quickly pick up how to play this, and can get some fun about of it to this day, especially if you can bring some friends with you. The biggest issue will be when you use the many tools and enemies not currently available in HD2, you will be anxiously awaiting their additions to the sequel.

The OG, the building blocks for HD2.
Still holds up, 10 years later.
If you have played HD2, play this!!

Played on the ps4 with 150+ hours, got it on steam and it's still a great experience and still enjoy my self playing it. Very grindy, and best to play with friends

not a good solo experince

This game should be an example to all future co-op shoot'em up games, would definitely recommend. Planning on buying the second game as well. " For Freedom and Democracy!!! "

brothering metal flying decisions made beside the only similiar thought that brought us to this place is what i could say this reminds me a bein "in a game"

If your system cannot run helldivers 2, and you are here wondering if this one is any fun. It is, and it'a not dead yet.

GREAT fun and challenging


super fun co-op and interesting (& fun) friendly fire

It's rare that I enjoy a mostly online game or at least one that claims to be, the game is clearly designed for solo/single player. It's frustrating having to drag 3 players everywhere like they're 3 disobedient dogs because you have to share a camera in multiplayer, constantly telling people to hurry up because they'd rather fight infinitely re-spawning waves.

Just do the objectives and finish the mission, enemies all run slower than you except for 2 or 3 and the enemies de-spawn once you're a set distance from them.

Overall, I'd get this if you want a good singleplayer game. No idea what it's like with friends. Couldn't get them to play. Randoms are a nightmare though.

Top down view, training helps learn the ropes, and good for co-op same room play with a friend or online. Enjoyed HD2 so had to back track to 1. Fun unlocking upgrades and stratagems on higher levels. When on sale i recommend the full edition with more weapons and mechs early. Great fun, 9/10 (top down views)

still a good game afterafewyears
playernumbers drop as theres a new one
i play this on the go and mostly solo
or play with my kids

recomend other players to play as easy to understand
dont need high graphic requirement
can play on "remote play " so u can stream easy too
can play with 1 account with 3 additional players
or online with friends BUT they need to have the game too

highly recommend to play!!!

It's alright if you have a low-end PC and time to kill. Very difficult to grind and often infuriating.

Good game, too bad I have no friends to play this with.

I'd recommend this game if you have friends to play it with. I found it fairly difficult to find other players to get in a lobby with because I DON'T have any friends who play this, and it's pretty hard to play on higher difficulties without a full squad, making the full experience either not that much fun, or literally unplayable by yourself.

Other than that, it's a good game. 10/10

Very good for couch coop, very bad if you are within punching range.

If I get executed by player 2's drop pod one more time

it's a really good game, but the raid bosses present a very large challenge even some of our best players struggle with so it's a pretty good game

A great version of HELLDIVERS, wherein you may dispense some good ol' managed democracy. The local coop is an amazing part of this game as well, so the whole family can gather together and eliminate some traitorous wrong-thinking aliens.

great game, blew bugs into smitherines, blasted bots to the fucking moon, and put the illuminate to rest

Old game from 2015, still fun as hell. If you find on discount, just get it. May also be worth full price depending how much you love the franchise or hardcore co-op action games.

Not a Bad Game to Take on Sale if you like Top/Down Shooter
Good
A lot of fun with friends
Can be played solo
Can be played with random people and the community is surprisingly well behaved
Initially there's a lot of variety (enemies, environments, weapons) and the progression system is very enjoyable (you unlock new equipment or perks very often)
Friendly fire is awesome in this game, realistic and fun
Amazing attention to detail and great use of realism to introduce difficulty - for example turning speed is lower when firing, you have to stop when you want to open the map (no persistent map overlay), you can't do any other action during weapon reload, you can shoot when bleeding on the ground but only from a small-arm pistol, etc

Bad
Once you unlock everything and play even the hardest difficulty missions (after 30-40 hours), there's little else to explore.
The enemy variety is much smaller than it initially seems. You've basically seen everything once you played a difficulty 9+ mission.
The environment has some variety (desert, volcanic, forest, snow, city), but they do not differ too much. For example I would expect shooting among and destroying the trees in the forest, or cracking the ice in a snow world. Nothing like that is there. The only visible change between the environment (except for snow/water surface) are volcanoes spilling lava.
The objectives variation could've been higher. There are maybe 10 different objectives, which is fine, but I'd like to see more of them, more different, and some of them introduced just later in the game.
The global war concept. On one hand, it's cool that all players contribute to a war, and it changes even without you playing (you come the next day and different sectors/planets are available). On the other hand, it prevents you from playing exactly the mission you want, and that's a huge disadvantage. The system isn't balanced properly, so one day the war ends, and on the next day it's not just that another war has started (that's obvious), but one of the factions might be already exterminated! Which means you'll be locked out of those missions (not be able to fight against that faction) for a few more days until a new war starts. Also, when we played Helldivers for the first time, we arrived at a point where only enemy home planets were available. So there were no missions where we could obtain new gear, which is essential on lower levels. This is very confusing for beginner players. I believe this game needs to give the player a choice whether they want to play the global war, or they just want to fire up a custom arbitrary mission with their friends, with no limitation.
The pricing mode. Arrgh! This is as bad as some F2P titles on mobile phones. You can play the vanilla (no DLCs) version very well, initially. But later, once you're playing the hardest difficulty missions, you'll realize that some of those missions (especially the snow ones) are almost impossible to complete unless at least someone from the team has bought the right DLCs. As I and my 3 friends picked up just the vanilla version, we have basically just 2 options - decide to pay up just to be able to "finish" the game (complete the hardest missions together), or be screwed. To make this even worse, the developers decided to do a shameless money-grab from those who originally bought the vanilla version and want to buy the DLCs later - the vanilla game is €20, the deluxe version (all DLCs) is €30, but the DLC megabundle (available when you already have the vanilla game) is €20, so €40 in total (€10 more than the deluxe version). I extremely despise this, the only fair approach is to not put DLC players into advantage in a multiplayer title. This is the opposite - DLC players are in a big advantage, you're not even able to play some missions without DLCs, and buying the DLCs later milks you from more money than the deluxe version cost. I'm very angry about this. To be absolutely clear, I'm talking here mainly about All-Terrain Boots (snow missions are near impossible without them), UAV (makes equipment upgrading much faster), Demolisher Charges (much better against tanks than alternatives when soloing) and perhaps some other. My main gripe goes to the boots, though, because you'll feel cheated once you try snow maps on high difficulties without them.

Short missions, hilarious moments, great top down action, simple, satisfying... its how dawn of war III should have been but never was.

It is also better than running with rifles, and I do love that game.

And gotta love the Star Wars references from republic commando in the DLCs.

Got this gem 10 years late for less than 6€. But it is still well worth 20€ in 2025.