Introduction
Helldivers 2 is a 2024 cooperative third-person shooter video game developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is the direct sequel to Helldivers (2015). Set in the 22nd century, the story follows the Helldivers, a force of shock troops dispatched to combat various threats to humanity and to spread managed democracy.
Helldivers 2 was released on 8 February 2024 for PlayStation 5 and Windows. It was a critical and commercial success, having sold in excess of 19 million copies. Considered among the best video games of 2024, it was nominated for and won a number of awards. On 26 August 2025, Helldivers 2 released on the Xbox Series X/S.
Gameplay
Helldivers 2 is a shooter game played primarily from a third-person perspective. Players complete operations consisting of 1-3 procedurally generated levels (missions), conducting tasks within the missions (objectives), while fending off hordes of enemies. Players choose the difficulty level of their operations, ranging from level 1 (“Trivial”) to level 10 (“Super Helldive“).
Players enter missions by dropping onto planets from their Super Destroyer starship in a transportation device called a “Hellpod.” A core gameplay feature carried over from the first game is the use of Stratagems, powerful equipment which must be called in from their Super Destroyer by executing a sequence of directional button or arrow key inputs. Players may select up to four stratagems in advance to bring into the mission, as well as a “Booster” which affects the whole team.
Helldivers 2 features cooperative multiplayer with up to four players, but does not include a dedicated single-player campaign. It also provides optional cross-play. Friendly fire is always on. In the initial days of release, gameplay involved staff at the studio observing players and influencing gameplay in real time. The game features live service content updates.
Players can obtain in-game currency which may be discovered during missions or awarded by completing operations, missions, and objectives. As players gain experience and progress in levels, they unlock different weapons and Stratagems to use during missions. Players can also collect samples during missions, which are used to upgrade the player’s Super Destroyer, providing advantages during gameplay. By completing operations, players also contribute to the collective progress of “Major Orders,” which are mass-collaborative missions that directly affect the outcome of the Galactic War in-game.
Warbonds
Helldivers 2 has a battle pass system called “Warbonds” that never expire. Warbonds can be purchased with in-game currency known as “Super Credits,” which players can obtain in-game, purchase via microtransactions, or unlock as part of the Warbonds themselves. By 26 August 2025, coinciding with the game’s release on the Xbox system, Arrowhead introduced a “Warbond Token” currency that allows users to purchase one kind of Warbond to their liking, and is only available as a bundle to the game’s deluxe edition, the “Super Citizen Edition.”
Synopsis
Setting
Helldivers 2 takes place in the 22nd century, one hundred years after the triumph of Super Earth, a self-described managed democracy, over the Bugs, Cyborgs, and Illuminate during the First Galactic War. Humanity seized faster-than-light (FTL) travel technology from the defeated Illuminate, and used it to conquer the galaxy during a period known as the Great Democratisation. Humanity also discovered that the decomposing corpses of the Bugs contain a unique and highly valuable resource known as “Element-710” (E-710), used for FTL travel. Bug farms are established on human-colonized worlds, and after decades of genetic engineering and accelerated evolution, they become known as Terminids.
Plot
The Second Galactic War
The events of Helldivers 2 begin in the year 2184 after the Super Earth Armed Forces (SEAF) fail to contain the Terminids, which have escaped their farms, causing widespread chaos and destruction. Simultaneously, a new threat emerges in the form of the Automatons, creations of the defeated Cyborgs, intending to get revenge against humanity. In response, Super Earth declares war and mobilizes the Helldivers, an elite task force, to combat the threats. Environmental storytelling is prevalent throughout the game, with various logs, notes, and propaganda messages available for players to find during gameplay.
The initial Automaton expedition culminated in battles on Malevelon Creek, resulting in two months of fighting and high casualties before the planet was finally taken. Meanwhile, an effort to destroy the Terminid presence on several worlds fails, and planet Meridia becomes a Terminid “Supercolony.” Using a substance called Dark Fluid, the Helldivers trigger a planetary collapse on Meridia, transforming it into a wormhole. Not long after the destruction of Meridia, an interstellar cloud of spores called “The Gloom” emerged deep within Terminid space, terraforming planets within and birthing new variants of Terminids.
As a result of many costly battles, the Helldivers embarked on an expansive project to construct the Democracy Space Station (DSS), a massive orbital battle station capable of supporting Helldiver campaigns with ordnance and soldier optimization. The Helldivers were deployed to defend the construction of the DSS, while destroying Automatons to utilize their technology and harvesting E-710 from the Terminids for fuel. After several weeks, the DSS was completed, and the Helldivers were granted the ability to vote on where to periodically deploy it.
Station-81 game
On 9 May 2025, channel “S81-Satcom” was added to the official Helldivers 2 Discord server by Arrowhead as an alternate reality game. The original message included a livestream from the perspective of four different satellites orbiting Super Earth, with Station-81 being offline. The goal to reactivate Station-81 was completed by users working together to recalibrate datablocks. This served to reveal the Illuminate’s final assault on Super Earth, which was caught on Station-81’s cameras emerging from the Meridian singularity, before Station-81 would be destroyed.
Development and release
On 3 December 2020, Arrowhead Game Studios revealed that work had started on a new project for PlayStation 5. It was confirmed that the game would be a third-person shooter. Like the first game, Helldivers 2 runs on the discontinued Autodesk Stingray game engine (originally known as Bitsquid). Arrowhead Game Studios founder Johan Pilestedt confirmed on social media that “The project started before [Stingray] was discontinued,” adding, “Our crazy engineers had to do everything, with no support to build the game to parity with other engines.”
On 3 July 2025, Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that the game would be released for the Xbox Series X/S consoles on 26 August 2025. The Xbox version was developed by Nixxes Software, a studio under PlayStation Studios known for its expertise in porting games to other platforms. The release features full cross-platform play, enabling users across Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows to play together. Helldivers 2 is the second game published by
PlayStation Studios to be released on the Xbox platform. The release also coincided with the launch of Gears of War: Reloaded on the PlayStation 5; the Gears of War franchise had been a Microsoft exclusive since its debut in 2006. Some publications deemed the release of Helldivers 2 on Xbox and Gears of War on PlayStation as further proof of the end of the “console wars.”
Reception
Helldivers 2 received “generally favorable” reviews from critics. In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave the game a total score of 30 out of 40.
Upon release, the game experienced a large influx of players, leading to widespread server and login issues for the first two weeks of release. By the third week of release, the player cap was increased to “a whopping 700,000 concurrent users.”
Aaron Bayne of Push Square described the game as “a riotous affair, offering up best-in-class gunplay” and a “truly epic and often cinematic experience, mixed in with one of the best co-op gameplay romps currently available.” However, he criticized the game for the server issues and crashes that players experienced after release.
Helldivers 2 has been compared to the 1997 science fiction action film Starship Troopers; both are satirical comedies featuring a militaristic regime fighting against a race of large insectoids.
U.S. Army veteran and journalist Clay Beyersdorfer stated, “That’s the trick: Helldivers 2 works because it doesn’t glamorize war. It pokes fun at it. It doesn’t try to make players feel like elite operators. It makes you feel like a cog in a machine that only half works and is pointed in the wrong direction.”
Helldivers 2 has been listed among the best video games of 2024.
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | (PC) 83/100 (PS5) 82/100 (XSXS) 88/100 |
| OpenCritic | 91% |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Digital Trends | 4/5 |
| Eurogamer | 4/5 |
| Famitsu | 30/40 |
| Game Informer | 9/10 |
| GameSpot | 9/10 |
| GamesRadar+ | 4/5 |
| Hardcore Gamer | 4/5 |
| IGN | 9/10 |
| NME | 4/5 |
| PC Gamer (US) | 86/100 |
| Push Square | 9/10 |
| Shacknews | 8/10 |
| The Guardian | 4/5 |
| VideoGamer.com | 8/10 |
Accolades
| 2024 | Golden Joystick Awards | Ultimate Game of the Year | Nominated | [95][96] |
| Best Multiplayer Game | Won | |||
| Console Game of the Year | Won | |||
| Best Game Trailer (launch trailer) | Won | |||
| Critics’ Choice Award | Won | |||
| The Game Awards 2024 | Best Ongoing Game | Won | [97] | |
| Best Community Support | Nominated | |||
| Best Action Game | Nominated | |||
| Best Multiplayer Game | Won | |||
| The Steam Awards | Game of the Year | Nominated | [98] | |
| Better with Friends | Won | |||
| Most Innovative Play | Nominated | |||
| 2025 | 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards | Game of the Year | Nominated | [99][100] |
| Action Game of the Year | Won | |||
| Online Game of the Year | Won | |||
| Outstanding Achievement in Game Design | Nominated | |||
| Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design | Won | |||
| Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition | Won | |||
| Game Audio Network Guild Awards | Best Audio Mix | Nominated | [101] | |
| Best Game Foley | Nominated | |||
| Best Game Trailer Audio | Won | |||
| Best Main Theme | Won[c] | |||
| Best Original Song (“Helldivers 2 ‘Super Earth National Anthem'”) | Nominated | |||
| Best Original Soundtrack Album | Nominated | |||
| Best UI, Reward, or Objective Sound Design | Nominated | |||
| Creative and Technical Achievement in Music | Nominated | |||
| Dialogue of the Year | Nominated | |||
| Creative and Technical Achievement in Sound Design | Nominated | |||
| Music of the Year | Nominated | |||
| Sound Design of the Year | Nominated | |||
| 25th Game Developers Choice Awards | Game of the Year | Nominated[d] | [102] | |
| Best Technology | Nominated | |||
| Best Design | Honorable mention | |||
| Innovation Award | Honorable mention | |||
| NAVGTR Awards 2024 | Animation, Technical | Nominated | [103] | |
| Art Direction, Contemporary | Won | |||
| Control Design, 3D | Nominated | |||
| Game, Franchise Action | Nominated | |||
| Graphics, Technical | Nominated | |||
| Performance in a Comedy, Supporting (Craig Lee Thomas as “Super Earth Spokesperson”) | Won | |||
| Sound Editing in a Game Cinema | Nominated | |||
| Sound Effects | Won | |||
| Use of Sound, Franchise | Nominated | |||
| Writing in a Comedy | Nominated | |||
| 21st British Academy Games Awards | Best Game | Nominated | [104] | |
| Animation | Nominated | |||
| Audio Achievement | Nominated | |||
| Game Design | Nominated | |||
| Multiplayer | Won | |||
| Music | Won | |||
| Narrative | Longlisted | |||
| Technical Achievement | Longlisted | |||
| Performer in a Supporting Role (Craig Lee Thomas as Super Earth Spokesperson) | Longlisted | |||
| Golden Joystick Awards | Still Playing Award – PC and Console | Nominated | [105] | |
| 2026 | 68th Annual Grammy Awards | Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media | Pending | [106] |
Film adaptation
In January 2025, Sony Pictures announced during Sony’s CES 2025 conference that they are working on a film based on the game. As of 7 November, 2025, no further updates have been announced.[125]
Notes
- Additional work by Toadman Interactive. Xbox Series X/S version by Nixxes Software.
- Additional music by Ross Tregenza
- Tied with Star Wars Outlaws[101]
- Also received honorable mention[102]
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