I don’t spend a lot of time on shooters these days, yet this game is an exception. In many ways, on paper, that shouldn’t be the case. It’s a live-service cooperative third-person shooter with microtransactions that can only be played online.
Yet…
Shooter
Arrowhead designed a game where twitchy reflexes help - but can be compensated for by knowing where to be and what to use, to the point that as an old fart I’m capable of providing decent support for a team of up to four.
The controls make sense, and the gameplay is pretty tight, even with the occasional odd glitch.
Live Service and Co-op
Sure, you have to be online to play, which is true of pretty much any MMO as well, but here, instead of shackling you to online access to merely play, Arrowhead uses it to create a persistent world that reportedly has a game master in the background determining where and how intense the automaton and bug pushes are, as well as what the major and personal goals should be at any time. The rewards for taking at least one mission set in alignment with the major orders is substantial, but there’s no reason you can’t go and play with the bugs instead of the bots, or vice versa, if you so wish.
The GM may have his thumb on the scales for how the universe at large responds, as well as in offering incentives, but it is the players who ultimately decide what they want to do.
More importantly, unlike many other games, there are no predefined and packaged story arcs that everyone can participate in at whatever time during any given season. If there’s a bot incursion and Malevelon falls, you were either there… or you were not, and never will be.
Despite being a live-service cooperative game, you actually can play by yourself, or limit who can drop into a game, by running your own missions and restricting who can join to your friends list. Plenty of people play exactly that way, even up into the higher difficulty levels.
Speaking of friends, I’ve found the cross-platform play between PCs and playstations to be pretty solid.
The game also rapidly reminds you of the old saying that friendly fire… isn’t. You can shoot your buddies by accident - or “buddies” by “accident” - as well as get killed by a strafing run, napalm strike, orbital bombardment, or turret fire, whether yours or anyone else’s. That said, I’ve found the experience of playing with randoms to be free of griefers. I will note that stealing someone else’s support weapons and gear unless offered is bad form and will almost certainly get you kicked out.
Microtransactions and Git Gud.
There are four major currencies in the game:
Requisition Slips - which allow you to access bigger and better support weapons
Samples - which allow you to upgrade the ship so that you get more ammo, your fire support responds faster, and so on. There are three types, with the rarer ones only available at progressively harder levels
Super Credits - The only currency you can purchase with real money, used to unlock War Bonds - Helldiver’s name for a battle pass - and to get the occasional bit of special armor and a few other miscellaneous items.
Medals - You can pay up to unlock a battle pass sooner, but that doesn’t make the new fancy armor or gun yours for the taking, you still have to earn it by earning medals - and the only way to do that is to play and complete missions. Medals are how you purchase squad boosts, better primary and secondary weapon options, or most of the available armor and emote options
A note on war bonds - they often have several tiers, each tier requiring you to spend a number of medals in previous tiers to unlock it. That said, they also don’t push the FOMO. Battle passes don’t expire, so you can pick and choose what you work your way toward acquiring. You may need to spend a certain number of medals to unlock a higher tier in a war bond, but you don’t have to get everything.
In the end, you can pay up for an edge by unlocking battle passes a bit sooner than you would finding the supercredits in game, but you have to play to actually unlock those weapons and armor options. The better ship upgrades also require you to play on harder levels to get the needed samples.
Finally - the microtransactions appear to be truly “micro” compared to other games I’ve seen, and that’s after spending $40 on a game who’s competition is often $60 or more.
Environment
Sharp gameplay aside, the look of the planets, from being stuck in blizzards, dense fog, and firestorm tornadoes that will fry you (as well as your foes), is a sight to behold.
And the nuclear sunrise of the ICBM you just launched on some missions is a sight to behold.
Aesthetic
Arrowhead cares about their aesthetic. Whatever you may think of their satire and poking fun at Americans obsession with liberty and guns, or (our) “managed democracy” or misinformation, or whatever, they knew what they were aiming for, and they stuck to it. Everything in the game is coherently part of the overall aesthetic, from the PA announcements and TV ads on your ship to the use of FTL jumps and hellpods dropping in place of lame loading screens. The music is epic , dynamic, and utterly on point.
In short - the game is its own world, take it or leave it, and Arrowhead appears to want to keep it that way.
One final note - they let you win the game. You actually kill the big bosses on the board and complete the missions, and hopefully even make evac to collect those samples. There is no cutscene to take the controls away from you and show you how you really beat the bosses.
In the End
On paper - I shouldn’t like it. But I do. The dark humor lightens up what could be as grimdark a game as what 40K used to be. The gameplay itself is tight enough to let me play a genre I normally would be miserable at and do so decently. They do everything reasonably possible to keep you immersed without abusing you - it feels like they actually respect you as a customer. Finally, you can occasionally pony up a couple bucks, but you don’t have to, and anyone you see strutting around with nice gear had to play the game.
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It's the perfect game loop for a time-poor dad like me. Absolutely fantastic experience.