HELLDIVERS™ 2

One of the best CO-OP games out there. I've enjoyed the hell out of this game. Wish my accounts would have linked so I could have saved my progress. But overall a fantastic game.

As a veteran of the First Galactic War, Helldivers 2 brings a tear to my eye. Arrowhead took a fun, funny twin stick shooter and upgraded this sequel into the more intense genre of 3rd person shooter with beautiful graphics while directly adapting so much from the original- from gameplay mechanics to weapons to lore... The amount of polish and little details is so impressive if you take the time to look at it. The variety of customization available through "warbonds" adds a lot of fun and rewarding progression, and they implemented a great balance for paying for additional content by giving you the ability to unlock everything for free if you work for it.

The community is pretty solid if you're looking for folks to play with, but if you can play with friends, even better. If you're looking for a single-player only experience, that's technically doable, but this may not be the game for you. If you are looking for co-op shooter action with a side of humor inspired by Starship Troopers, this is definitely the game for you.

They did have to work through a lot of technical, balancing, and other issues in the first few months after launch, but they have worked through them, and the result is awesome.

100 hours in, might as well give it a review.

The combat is what makes the game. Forget completing objectives, sneaking around, etc.. The game shines when the bullets are flying and the explosions are exploding. I have not yet encountered another recent game like this that manages to turn PvE into this intense and relentless experience. The only 2 other games I've seen of this kind (that I know about) which truly "hit the spot" for me is Halo Reach and Alien Swarm. Both of those are improved by modding. Until I bought this game, Reach Firefight was my go-to for this style of game.

I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy this game, after months of seeing the occasional video but stubbornly sticking to Reach, as much like an old pet or a lost loved one, I didn't want to accept anything else. When Reach came to PC it was the most exciting moment in gaming I've felt since the game was released in 2010. I won't go further into that "tale", point is that accepting something else was never going to be easy.

Helldivers is about 80% of the way to (gameplay-wise) being what I would imagine a modern Halo game set around the ODST would look like. I'll make it clear here and now I have zero love for the titles that came out of 343i. I appreciate that there was talent among the 343i Halo devs, but overall the studio butchered the franchise. Arrowhead has managed to accomplish with an indie studio and an abandoned game engine what Microsoft and over a decade of 343i could never have come close to achieving.

They need to fix the bugs, give the galactic war more coordination for players than "dive on whatever planet you feel like", and continue with the content releases. I'll be giving them a lot of leeway with judging updates, because this game blew up to a size they never expected, and this is an indie studio. Not a massive conglomerate with billions at their disposal. As far as arguments around whether they should truly be considered indie because of them developing an IP owned by Sony... well, you just gonna have to make up your own opinion on that.

Anyway, in the interests of keeping this short. This game is fun. That is why it's good, the same reason why the Bungie games were good. They prioritised fun before any and all else, which is what any game development studio should be doing.

I'm certainly not convinced the game has a reliable future, but I really hope so. I would like to be able to focus my enjoyment of this style of game on a franchise that is under active development for years to come. And while I'll always love Halo first, I accepted years ago it ended with Reach.

As a final note, the way the devs lean into the theme of Super Earth and Managed Democracy, even in support emails, is hilarious. It adds another layer to the "fun first" mentality

Peace.

holy shit i loved this game, i love coop shooters as a whole. this game really scratched an itch. but i come back after months of not playing and all of a sudden the game crashes as soon as i load up a mission. I used to be able to play this on a POS potato laptop but whatever they did bricked the game for me. and i notice alot of other people having performance issues as well. idk.. how do you screw it up this badly.

Amazing game brought down by long droughts of content and severely dwindling amount of content in new warbonds.

I love Helldivers, but we're back to taking steps backwards. Months inbetween updates, bugs, glitches, tanking performance, and filler MO's. We need to start taking direction here guys.

Filled with a bunch of game breaking, soft locking bugs since day one, and the devs haven't even tried in the slightest to fix them instead, they just keep cranking out more and more battle passes for a game that already costs $40

I wish I could put this review as mixed. The core gameplay loop is well done and the aesthetic of a gritty, costly war is nailed, the gunplay most of the time is awesome and you can play with a decently large amount of versatility. I've had a lot of fantastic moments playing the game from single-handedly holding a point against hordes of bots with the HMG, HMG emplacement and AT emplacement. But unfortantely those moments are more and more becoming the exception to the gameplay that when the game released we saw thousands of amazing looking clips of hard fought conflicts. The core gameplay loop while fun at first becomes more and more frustrating as you're goal moves from mission completion and survival to completion of the mission with all objectives ASAP for maximum XP, super credits and samples as needed.

As others have noted weapon balance changes happen a lot with patches where tactics that previously worked no longer do so, often justified as 'the enemy improved their armour so our AT is less effective' whilst the only change being our damage has dropped whilst the enemy is tankier with no other downside. The most recent change that i personally was around for was changing the dropships from being taken down by the recoilless in one round anywhere to the chassis now being reverted to only being shot down to a shot to the engines. Sure fine, but in exchange for the enemies increased protective capacity reduce their speed or reduce their troop carrying capacity. Other weapons such as the slugger got hit hard previously because it was out performing snipers at range, whilst an adjustment to the slugger was necessary, the main problem to me atleast was the lackluster snipers themselves. Why should i take a rifle that penetrates light armour and does less damage per shot with a similar magazine size to the slugger that had medium penetration and did more damage per shot? Now the counter-sniper is in a position similar to the slugger pre-nerf, why should i take the regular sniper when the counter sniper does more damage, penetrates better armour and the only downsides are reduced magazine size and more recoil? With all that ranting out of the way the Illuminate helped this problem so much, with a majority of the units introduced being a mix of light and a little medium you can bring almost any weapon and make it work. And while you can bring any weapon to any front and make it work to the best of your ability that doesnt mean the effort to put into making the weapon work is worth the time spent.

Another problem with this game is the slow release of content, which in all fairness happens, content takes time and money and releasing things early when it isn't finished only makes things worse. With that said for players that have put considerable time into the title and have unlocked everything to be unlocked there isn't any reason to keep playing. There is no endgame other than running the hardest missions because you can and leveling to the level cap, which only gives titles at every 10 levels. As of a few hours ago Arrowhead has announced the 'Masters of Ceremony Marches' warbond with more content to unlock. And after having a read through the post I'm assuming that we'll get 3 pages of warbond material and within a week most players that are maxed will have it completed if not sooner. Regardless of the quality of the warbond, which looks great, that isn't an endgame. Login once every month or so, spend the maxed medals and then do missions till you unlock the rest of the warbond. Outside of that there isnt much reason to play the game, the major orders are samey which just a different look to spruce things up here and there. The occasionally drop of new enemies most of the time arent announced so its up to the individual to either login or look it up. Players that are invested into the title and are part of the discord and are following HD2 news channels will be in the know but what about everyone else? If I joined every discord for every game I'd played I'd reach server cap, If i follow every Dev's twitter/X my feed would be spammed with notifications that I honestly couldn't care for. But every player of HD2 has an associated news feed through Steam or Playstation, use it to announce content.

My final gripe isn't even with the game or devs, its the playerbase that seems to have fallen for the propaganda from the game. I've seen criticism of the game dismissed as "Un-Democratic" or "Treason" from players that seemly cant disassociate the in-game universe from their self. There is a time to RP as an in universe character, but when people are having serious discussions about the title just act like a normal human, Its not that difficult. Understand that not everyone that plays the game cares about the lore or the story telling, the core gameplay is fun, let us enjoy that without the heavy RP or lore talk.

There is more issues with bugs and glitches and little gripes here and there but its all unnecessary at this point and if I continue longer I may as well create a blog titled "This is why gaming sucks and appeals to the male fantasy".

TLDR Game good, but there is issues some worse than others, and the beauty of this is that Arrowhead will keep updating the game with new content and things to do as the games life cycle continues, patches release, things change, grass grows, birds fly, sun shines and brother, I hope they continue to make and release quality content as they have been, despite my ranting.

Fantastic game, but unfortunately, it's become pretty obvious that Arrowhead is focusing on rushing out new and unpolished content as opposed to actually fixing months old issues. The game's performance has been steadily declining with each new update, as well as its stability.

By now, it's clear that Arrowhead has shifted their priorities away from optimizing the now glaring performance problems because, frankly, that just doesn't make them as much of that good-good Sony money.

The game is good, but I have no reason to play it.
Every few months they drop a new war bond with 1 or 2 decent items in it. Everything else is just there to take up space.
What am I supposed to do in the months between? Farm samples? The buffs are so insignificant it isn't worth doing.
You can only store 1/4 of a war bond's worth of medals, so those aren't worth farming either.

This game has brought me closer to my friends and gathered with a community of people to have fun and work together towards a common goal. From the Creek to the Singularity, I was there with my friends. And by liberty did I have a great time.

I am not sure where to start on why but, thank you Arrowhead.

Mostly been playing with friends but I`ve enjoyed it havnt gotten to the point were the game gets super grindy so I`ll see if that kills my mood for it. I played a lot of the first game was super suprised to see this one pop off the way it did.

I used to be able to run the game without any issues, but after some recent updates, I can no longer play. (haven't been playing for few months now) When I launch the game, the anti-cheat software loads, but then an error pops up and stops the process — I can't get past it. A quick search shows that other users are experiencing the same issue. I reached out to the dev team via email but haven't received any response or update. Honestly, it feels like they don't even care at this point.

game used to play fine , came to play today and its choppy as hell for no reason and there are pools of water in areas that if you go in you will swim for a few secs then die so cant retrieve your stuff not sure why i cant swim but whatever game used to be ok to pass a bit of time but not worth the effort now.

Great game, fun rounds. Good for both intro and long term play.

I wish I could give this game a positive review, but I can't the time I have spent playing this game has truly been fun I enjoy every aspect of this game except one thing, bugs myself and many other continue to face the game crashing whenever it feels like, many times after a update releases my game will crash after launching only to randomly be fixed some other update, this isn't as simple as validating game files or reinstalling, it saddens me to have such a loved game left to a coin flip if I can play it or not, I fear this bug may forever be woven into HD2

Man, I love Helldivers 2. It's honestly one of my fav games however the performance is terrible after these last few patches. I used to run the game at 60fps but now it drops down to 4...

It's actually unplayable which is a shame. I hope you fix this arrowhead..

Went from my favourite game to my least favourite because of Arrowheads inability to make a functioning working game. You had a gem here, and you've ******* it up so badly its a waste of time now. Congrats.

This has been an awesome game to 100% with my friends; the community is great and super supportive during all my interactions.

9/10 game, For Super-Earth

The game is great, but unfortunately it crashes so much it has become unplayable now, haven't been able to play in two weeks and nothing would fix it. It was good while it lasted.

I can confidently say Helldivers 2 is one of the most finely crafted co-op experiences in recent years. It strikes a rare balance between intense, high-stakes action and deeply satisfying team-based strategy. Every mission feels dynamic and consequential, demanding both coordination and quick thinking as the battlefield constantly evolves. The game’s signature blend of chaos and precision keeps even seasoned players on edge, while the larger galactic war effort adds weight to every successful extraction or failed operation. Despite its brutal difficulty curve, Helldivers 2 rewards persistence and teamwork in a way few titles manage. It’s not just about completing objectives—it’s about surviving together, growing as a squad, and contributing to something bigger. For those willing to embrace its challenge, this is co-op gaming at its absolute best.

Its fun to play, but for me its bit repetitive after some time.

There is no higher calling then fighting for Freedom and Democracy in the name of Super Earth. And there is no greater purpose than being a Helldiver and serving alongside some of the most heroic, elite and expendable soldiers in the galaxy. You will learn to count on one another, cover each other, share resources, and occasionally you may even blow each other up with an Eagle strike...but even friendly fire is a necessary sacrifice in the name of Liberty! You will explore our vast galaxy, see new worlds and encounter new species. There is no terrain or environment that is too tough, and even when it is, our Destroyers will bomb it into oblivion from orbit. Bugs, Bots and Illuminate.... they will stop at nothing to destroy our way of life but they don't stand a chance against the likes of you! Freedom isn't free, and Managed Democracy is best spread through the barrel of a gun. Respawning is limited, but glory is forever! Join the fight, join the Helldivers, and be part of Super Earth's last line of offence!

Constant full system crashes/freezes. 40 FPS with low graphics on a 3070 and 10th gen i9 during max difficulty battles. I love this game but cannot fully recommend it in this state. Maybe see if it works on your pc in the 2 hour steam free return window.

I had a really long detailed comment typed out, but helldivers froze my entire computer and I had to reboot and lost it. Sorry, not typing it out for a third time.

I will update this review once the issues are fixed.

I feel like the end is nigh for Helldivers 2.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time over the last year playing this game which, as a casual gamer has scratched THAT itch.
Over the past year the bag has been fumbled a few times with certain updates or the furore over forced Playstation membership which actually alienated a lot of people in countries that Playstation didn't even support!
Corporate greed has unfortunately dug its claws into this game slowly but surely as the Warbonds seem to get thinner and lighter and the storyline just meander's back and forth with no real defining arc.

I don't like talking down about a game that I have quite happily sunk over 300 hour's into but with the last update physically stopping me from playing with the black screen of death on startup, I have to draw the line somewhere.

The ingredients are all there to make an amazing game but that would be too simple it seems. Lets wheel out this heap of buggy (no pun intended) mess that wants to choke-hold you into membership's and Kernel level anti-cheat software and then we'll kick you while you're writhing around on the floor.

I will dive no more.

this game used to run good on my 3060. then the cowboy warbond came out and it runs 20fps. unplayable.

The game can be a lot of fun, but with the last few updates the game has become very unstable.

On several occasions I've been in the middle of missions when one by one team mates start disconnecting, then when im all alone if I die I will not revive, i will just sit there hovering over my corpse.
Another glitch I came across was while trying to use my Quasar Cannon, i went to aim and suddenly I was just hovering in the sky, my teammates said I was just laying on the floor but i took a video and sent it my friend in the game so he could verify what i was seeing while he was looking at my character just lay on the floor.
Many times we will just clip through the map after an explosion or impact, you either get stuck or the game kills you by "environment".
Misisons came take 20-30 minutes sometimes and gaming time becomes more limited and more precious the older you get, after so much time wasted on missiosn you cant complete because of bugs, and when the game is set up for you to get bigger rewards from completing 3 consecutive missions, its just utterly discouraging and makes you not want to bother even starting up the game.

This game would be perfect, absolutely perfect, if not for one thing. The optimisation. The optimisation in this game is so fucking garbage that it drops it from a 9.5 to a 3/10.
Out of all the games to release, why doesnt this one have DLSS? or FSR? Or fucking anything to balance the horrendous performance this game has? Good fucking luck playing any difficulty above 5 if you have a lower-end PC, you'll get freezes at critical moments that kill you, aiming will feel like crap because of how low your fps is. I have played this game for 70-ish hours, tried every fix in the book because I want to like this game, everything about this game, minus the optimisation is amazing, but what good is an amazing game if you cant fucking play it?

Devs, please do something, anything at all. Its been a year since release, there is no excuse for your game to run like this.

I used to recommend this game. But not anymore

The game is in desperate need of balance and bug fixes. A lot of issues were raised by the community on Reddit. And the devs don't seem to be interested in tackling them. All we get is major orders. plot that is inconsequential & war-bonds pushing you to buy premium currency

The only thing kept me playing is the solid core gameplay. A core gameplay that is constantly undermined by frustrating bugs, badly tuned units, and other erratic game dynamics, And the devs will release another major order related to the bullsh*t plot and call it a day

Really sad & unfortunate... It's time to move on

The idea is good but arrowhead refuses to address performance issues on pc and every update degrades performance. overly monetised too for a game im paying for, how come if i want content thats useful i need to spend 15 dollars to buy the latest pass? the idea and core gameplay is really good but lazy business practices make this game a disappointment

Devs need to either offer refunds or make the game playable. The performance is HORRIBLE. 20-28 FPS on average with a 3080Ti and Intel i7-11800H CPU. The horridly low FPS and amount of stutters make the game genuinely unplayable, even on the lowest graphical settings. Every update has only made it worse. Devs continue to push more microtransactions without addressing the unacceptable performance issues. Don't buy this game unless you've got a PC from NASA or unless the devs actually make the game run properly. Game was great fun when it was playable, but it hasn't been for months. Game went from being one of my favorites of all time to just making me angry that the developers conned me out of my money and then made the game unplayable.

Game is full with bugs.. i mean BUGS as in the none 6 legged kind, Currently impossible to play smoothly as thy have not fix these visual bugs and game performance hit thy had the last month. Stalling story line and lack of progression if you play it for long time.

Great fun have been had but going to play it much less until this is fixed.

Don't complain about the difficulty, it is easy to play on any level you want to so the top levels should be quite hard. The only possible criticism I could imagine is that some things can get a little repetitive, but all said and done I have enjoyed this game immensely, and still play it semi-regularly. Absolute beautiful chaos with a funny starship troopers like humor surrounding it.

Fantastic. I don't love shooters normally, but this one I can enjoy when I'm in the mood. I guess it's just that good.

Hold my Liber-Tea and check this game out! Awesome co op shooter! Tons of fun with your friends! You'll be screaming "For Democracy!" within hours of getting started.

Three different factions to throw down with across many varying landscapes. Tons of stuff to unlock and upgrade along the way. Ten levels of difficulty offering a great variety of challenge. A tear may come to your eye when you here the mission launch tune kick in.

Definitely give this game a chance and will someone please fix this liberty forsaken arm?!

You can’t not like launching nuclear bombs on every fortress you see, then jumping straight into the chaos in a giant mech like you're auditioning for a Michael Bay movie. Helldivers is pure co-op madness in the best way possible. One second you're heroically saving Super Earth, the next you're accidentally nuking your whole squad because someone may or may not have tripped the stratagem too close.

The gameplay is no joke—tight controls, satisfying gunplay, and a stratagem system that turns every mission into a tactical puzzle and a potential comedy show. Enemies don’t wait around for you to get comfy, either. Bugs swarm, bots snipe, and the Illuminate? Straight-up war crimes. It demands coordination, but even when everything goes wrong (and it will), it’s the kind of chaos that makes you laugh through the panic. You’ll be shouting callouts one second, then begging for a revive while on fire the next.

But somehow, that’s the magic. It’s dumb, it’s intense, it’s hilarious, and it's absolutely addictive. Whether you’re calling in airstrikes, piloting a mech, or screaming as your teammate crushes you with a dropship, Helldivers turns every mission into a story worth yelling about.

Final Verdict: 10/10 would get blown up by my own team again. For democracy, of course.

Killer game that is definitely worth playing. However, I just wish the devs would start focusing on fixing the game's issues.

The recent update that came with the new warbond, Borderline Justice, was executed quite poorly and introduced a number of unfavourable issues to the game, noticeably messing up the TAA graphic setting and introducing some other small but noticeable bugs that were not present pre-update.

Hell, the most recent patch somehow messed up the reload mechanic for a widely-used weapon. The issue was that significant that they quickly released a patch for that patch which solely fixed said issue.

This type of behaviour from the devs has become a repeating issue for a while and a lot of people are becoming frustrated with it when you notice that other issues that share the same significance, such as mission softlocks which are surprisingly common, have been in the game for a while and are still yet to be fixed or even addressed by the devs.

All in all, this game is really good but if you are on the fence with buying it then I would wait until said issues have at least been addressed. The devs need not forget that this game lost a lot of it's playerbase in just a few days.

Ever since they did the patch to their AI I've been crashing out of games my PC can't last no more than 5 minutes before it starts to lag and crash me out of games. after playing over 900 hours of this amazing game to then have it unplayable is an insult to the amount of time i have put into this game and i have been playing this game from day zero. Once this is fixed i will change this review but until then stay away from this game till they figured out this unplayable bug.

cant even play the game after the new update, crashes on startup everytime

This game is awesome. It's more of a friend kind of game if you want to really have fun on it. I only played it solo in the beginning to unlock starting weapons. Playing with randos seems like a bad time according to other reviews and I never liked or tried randos myself from any game in general, let alone pc players that cheat. So if you have friends you can Michael Bay everything together as family. I don't really have any problems with this game. There's things I avoid like the highest difficulties but I am having more fun on here just playing it for fun on the diff I'm comfortable with.

I've really enjoyed Helldivers 2 for the year I've been playing. However, I absolutely despise ArrowHead at this point. Their entire approach to development of this game is atrocious, including the most recent update that makes it so people who bought the game a year ago can no longer play because they stealthily changed the system requirements. Despite generally enjoying this game, I cannot in good faith recommend it to new players just because of the trash way the studio has approached updates, balancing, bugs, and their overall interactions with the community as a whole.

The Games was pretty great but something they change mean it is now unplayable any combat tanks the framerate. I want to play the game but the game doesn't play.

This is a great game but after recent patch I am unable to play the game at all. It throws me out during the capsule decent on every map. Every time without any reason at all. The developer should fire and hire new development team managers. Or at least retrain them as they do not know what they do. Until that this will be a negative review.

The latest update ruined the already poor optimization even more.
The game is also still a repetitive, buggy mess that lacks an endgame.
The fact that over 180 countries still cannot play this game is absolutely outrageous.

F#ck you Sony, f#ck you Arrowhead

After the latest update, game crashes every single time right on startup. Been having issues like this almost since day one. Very fun game when it runs, too bad the garbage support and updates fuck you over every time.

The gameplay loop is boring. Customization is generic and unimpactful.
I heard great things about the game and I am disappointed. The game seems massively overhyped. I do not understand the appeal.

i'd vote it up but ever since the last few patches came out the performance has been getting worse and worse so i cannot in good faith recommend the game in its current state

I used to be able to run this game without any problem, but with the new update it just closes completely without any error message and steam says it is still running. I suspect it's something to do with AVX2, my CPU does not support this, and neither does a lot of people's. This is extremely bad on your end Arrowhead, douche move

After 464 hours spent on this game it no longer works.
I patiently waited when this game had problems launching in the summer time, I endured the massive weapon nerfs, and I have done my best to forgive playstation for their blocking half the planet from playing this game. But I think I'm done defending this trash now. From launch, this game has always had some problem with one thing or another. either the game wont start, anti cheat blocks players who don't cheat, or it would just crash at random.
i have tried to fix this issue, verifying game files, and even a complete reinstall. they have updated the game several times since this issue started and it makes no difference.
Currently i can spend time on my ship... but that's it. Arrowhead has got to make sure you can access the cash shop even if you cant play the game i gess.
It was fun, but I'm so tired of being disappointed whenever i try to play this game. i'll change my review if the game ever works again, but fair warning to all, don't get too attached to your stuff, the friends you make playing, or even the joy of this well made master piece, because corporate greed and shady devs are coming for it all.

The gameplay itself is quite fun especially on harder missions and the multiplayer co-op especially with friends can make the endless hours of play very worth the purchase. What I can't stand is the fact I get framelocked between 20-30 fps despite having a modern PC with a 3060 inside of my PC and I have had to spend hours trying to fix a problem the devs have known about for a while. (WITH NO FIX STILL) This doesn't always happen but my god is it frustrating to go through the back end to .ini files for a consumer to ensure the game is loading as sufficiently as possible and for someone whos paid nearly £400 for the graphics cards, drivers and the game itsel, getting framelocked kills my mood the moment it does load.

I love this game, but.....

Increasingly resource intensive game. I love this game, but over the past several months, it has become impossible to play due to the increased resource demand. CPU utilization is maxed out as soon as the game launches. I could be on a ship, in the menu, on a low level dive, or in the literal "boo-boo" and I will average around 25-50 frames. I run this game on several PC's, ranging from entry level to the highest end gaming hardware you can buy at the moment, and it is pretty much universal across the board. It wasn't like this originally, but each update seems to be making it worse. I recently checked Windows event log on several of my PC's and I have noticed that this application in particular experiences a fatal error every time I play it. Ironically, this game often crashes. I'm not some computer wiz, but I am currently in my senior year in software development and this seems to be a coding issue. Funny thing is, this runs better on my steam deck than my 4090 and 9800 x3D.