TL;DR Helldivers 2 is a very, VERY fun game marred by bogus dev decisions, a looming publisher, and awful monetization.

It's a joke within the community that this game oscillates between "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ we are SO back" to "It's so over" every other week. Hell, personally it took me a while to get into the game after it's disastrous launch that wouldn't even let you get into the game, followed by horrendously balanced weapons and enemies. When I got back in I was a bit off-put by the weird progression system but ended up playing along with it. Progression requires the grinding (or buying) of Super Credits, the game's premium currency, in order to buy Warbonds, which are effectively small, permanent battle passes. Once you buy the warbonds, you can start playing the game normally, gaining medals to spend within the warbond by completing missions, major/personal orders, and some exploration.

This is a bit of a problem for new players joining, since it requires a LOT of grinding (or spending money) in order to get these warbonds, and it can be rather offputting. To veterans it's not *too* big a deal since you're probably accumulating super credits through regular gameplay.

And then there's the Super Store.

Much like how fortnite has a battle pass with a seperate rotating store, Helldivers has warbonds with a seperate rotating store where you spend super credits to gain some neat cosmetic items. Was a fine little thing for veterans to dump some of their extra accumulated super creds into to get a cool looking helmet or two, and the shop would refresh every couple of days or so. A bit of a stink rose with the last update though, since now a weapon popped up in the super store. That meant we now had a gameplay item that was being sold for premium currency. Granted it was about 100 SC, which isn't much grinding to get, but it rubbed people the wrong way that they were already adding non-cosmetic items to the shop.

And now here we are. A crossover event with Killzone, where arrowhead decided to put the items for it in the super store, and this time they jacked the prices way up. The little stun baton that threw up a little stink last week was 100 SC. The new gun in the super store is 650 SC. Keep in mind a whole warbond is 1000 SC, and that gets you multiple weapons, armor pieces, stratagems, etc. This wasn't so much a stink it kicked up, but more like a whole orbital gas strike.

This is just the latest controversy after a string of controversies. Ever since the launch with it's infinite join queue, we now have had horrendously broken major updates, sony mandating a PSN account which ended up locking 150 countries out from playing, and an ill-advised gameplay addition of a space station that just kills your team more than the enemy. Every single time these controversies came up, arrowhead would pull back and work on fixing it. People are getting tired of this. We're full-on expecting some kind of apology for the Killzone crossover item prices and maybe the prices getting knocked down. And then we're gonna see them trip on their ♥♥♥♥ again. and again.

So, with all that negativity I just wrote... why is there still a big blue thumbs-up in the corner?

The game's too damn fun is why. The reason people are getting as passionately upset as they are at this game is because *it's a REALLY good game* that the devs keep ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up on in extraordinary ways. People WANT this game to be the absolute best it can be, so people are going to call out the bad decisions and practices. And arrowhead WILL listen... for a month or so, then ♥♥♥♥ up again with something else.

Ultimately, I'd say the game is worth it, but you might be joining into another fight. Not one against bots or bugs or squids, but a fight to make sure greedy hands don't ruin this game. Liberty speed, Helldiver.

In the 2.3 hours I played this game I:
1. got killed 6 different times by illuminated
2. got a 23 kill orbital strike
3. got killed by my teammates 5 times on the same mission
to top it all off, my friends were level 60 and i was level 1
amazing game, if you haven't bought it, then you're missing out

It's so over: ☐
We're so back: ☑

Love Helldivers 2 it is a great game really.

But when Sony really thinks it’s ok to be antidemocratic then they leave me no choice but to cast my vote.

For Super Earth.

game is great but why tf is EVERY new weapon/armor/stratagem locked behind a warbond or the super store

- DIFFICULTY -

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
☑️ Normal
☑️ Hard
🔲 "Dark Souls"

- GRAPHICS -

🔲 "MS Paint"
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
☑️ Masterpiece

- MUSIC -

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
☑️ Beautiful

- STORY -

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing "Temple Runners" for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
☑️ Epic story

- PRICE -

🔲 Underpriced
☑️ Perfect price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

- REQUIREMENTS -

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
☑️ Average
☑️ High end
🔲 "NASA" computer

- LENGTH -

🔲 Very short (0 - 3 hours)
🔲 Short (3 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15 - 50 hours)
🔲 Long (50 - 90 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (90 - 110 hours)
☑️ No ending

- FUN -

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
☑️ Ride of your life

- REPLAYABILITY -

🔲 It's a one - time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months / years
🔲 Definitely
☑️ Infinitely replayable

- WORTH BUYING -

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
☑️ Yes

The game is great, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

HOWEVER, this new crossover is too far. $20 worth of currency for an armor set, title, weapon, and player card. A $10 Warbond generally ships with THREE of each of these, aside from the title, and cost HALF the price. I don't know if this is Sony deciding to try and shoot the game in the head again, or if Arrowhead is truly just being scummy, but this was not the way to go after releasing the Illuminate. You fostered goodwill, you got a large playerbase back, and then you decided to go and do this.

Stop focusing solely on profit, you are already making money. Focus on making the game enjoyable, and people will continue to spend money on the game. We love this product and world you have provided us, so just keep making it better rather than focusing on selling us more BS.

Update: Following input from the community, Arrowhead has decided to look at how they treat collabs moving on, as well as giving us the second half of the collab entirely for free. Hopefully this will continue but considering their track record I'm not holding my breath.

i am disappointed hell divers, i thought you were the one with fair pricing and exciting stuff. oh i have been deceived.

ever since the newest update i literally cant do anything multiplayer :/

The cost of the new superstore items is straight up greedy