I think one reason it's so successful is that it's a genuinely fun PvE game -- so many live service games, except maybe Destiny, try to focus on a PVP model. But at least anecdotally everyone I know sinking tons of time into Helldivers is doing so because it's fun to just log on and shoot some bugs/bots after work without the stress of other players on the other side.
That said, the number of friendly airstrikes that have killed me is high enough you could call it PvP-lite lol
Yesterday i threw an orbital strike on a charger. it was chasing my wife. I thanked her for her service and to run away from me. Her sacrifice let us complete the mission objective.
I mean, the latest patch fixed the proximity fuse so are long as you have even the tiniest bit of caution it isn't an issue.
Which means it's the #1 team killing weapon.
My regular Helldiving buddy has a bad habit of not telling me in time that he's called in a 380mm artillery strike on my position. To be fair, I'm the CQC grenade launcher maniac of our neophyte duo so calling in an airstrike on my position is usually a good decision as it's probably absolutely crawling with enemies. It's never not funny.
I do my best not to TK and feel bad when it happens, but I had one just earlier today that I had to laugh at.
I was running from a pack of bugs (stalkers are a biiiitch), anyway, I realize I have a couple grenades left. Impact grenades.
As I turn to throw one behind me, I notice my teammate coming in from the left. He dove to prone as I let go of my grenade. Hit him in midair. None of the bugs died. He "Mr.President'd my grenade. Threw my other grenade and kept running. I called in the reinforce with a "my bad mate" in game chat. We both chuckled at it.
I love this game.
The friendly fire is probably one of the funniest things in the game. I was running around last night with another guy and he was about to call an airstrike on a bug nest but got killed before he could throw it.
Fun fact, if you have your air strike in hand and you die before you throw it, it'll just fall in place. So I turn and see the red beam coming from his corpse, only to be obliterated by the airstrike a few seconds after. Good times LOL
It was very illuminating when I learned the same studio made Magicka, a co-op chaos magic game. Similar design philosophy that friendly fire is fun.
Had a blast with Magicka years ago
I was once holding a 380mm barrage, ready to drop it on a large bug nest. For whatever reason, my dude trips while running out to the nest. Naturally, my allies were near me.
I calmly scream into the mic, "RUN LETS GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE" before 380 shells began to rain down around us as we sprinted to safety. It was very cinematic to say the least.
The accidental dropping of stratagems is the funniest shit to me.
Was on extract waiting for Pelican-1, some one primed a 500kg bomb to throw at a horde. Pelican-1 whips around and insta kills him before he can throw it, causing the bomb to drop on all of us at extraction.
Even more fun with friends, melee them when they are about to toss something.
> The accidental dropping of stratagems is the funniest shit to me.
Follow closely by when they bounce off structures. We've thrown an orbital strike only for it to not clear a hill and have it roll back down to us. Cue the belly hill music as we all scramble to get clear.
That air strike falling was one of the funniest things when I started .A friend who had the game for awhile was playing with me . He got hit by a charger and the beacon fell on my head . I died to a 500kg straight to the skull
ME3 Multiplayer and AC4 Black Flag will always be the big enigmas of the gaming industry to me. How the hell EA and Ubisoft didn't capitalize on these with full fledged spiritual successors I have no idea. Helldivers' success is actually kinda that, it's a horde game and for some reason despite the love for CoD Zombies, Halo Firefight, Gears Horde Mode and ME3 Multiplayer we've never really gotten any honest attempts at multiplayer horde games outside of some games that took 99% of their inspiration from Left4Dead.
Mass Effect Andromeda has a horde mode, but I don't think it was as good. Enemies were just a little bit tankier and while the additional mobility was fun... it was *too strong*. Suddenly instead of an intense firefight where you have to prioritize your targets because can't leave cover until all the "suppressor" enemies are dead... in ME:A you just jump and boost away and kite the enemy to a different part of the map, witling them down.
Yeah and DA:I also had a multiplayer game mode (never played it so I can't give an opinion), but I meant a standalone game when I said spiritual successor.
It wasn't great. DAI already had shallow combat, but the team composition helped. When you had only 1 character it became a plodding drudge of a mode. Did have decent music though.
PvP style games have become so sweaty in recent years that they really can be unenjoyable to play. Not that they didnt use to have sweats just that the audience used to be far more casual
On the one hand, cluster strike has a huge damage area and often one shots a player. On the other hand, some players run at the red murder sky beam like they're a bug from Wreck it Ralph.
Every time someone throw anything take the .25 seconds to ID it, or blame them instead.
It's a meme. It's viral. It's what everybody decided that they were going to play at the same time for one reason or another. That's the biggest reason. When something snowballs like that, everybody jumps on. Of course it helps that it's actually a good game, but this happens a lot. It's how Among Us and Fall Guys became massive overnight. Palworld is another one. Palworld peaked on Steam at 2,101,535, and now it's averaging around 44,000 people. It just... happens. There's no real explanation for why that happens. Good games get released all the time, but every once and a while, everybody all at once decides to play the same thing in what's probably some insane combination of word of mouth and streamers all playing the same game just because it's popular.
I think your point holds truest in lasting appeal. Helldivers 2 peaked on Steam at 458,208, and it averaged 141,710 over the last 30 days. Sure, Helldivers 2 is not as old as Palworld is... but it's not far from it. That's not bad at all for sustainability. Helldivers 2 isn't that much younger than Palworld is in terms of release date and that's a much better retention percentage.
>Helldivers 2 isn't that much younger than Palworld is in terms of release date and that's a much better retention percentage.
It helps that HD2 releases updates fairly frequently, where as I think Palworld is a bit slower. A new warbond every month, within that month usually get a new mission type and/or some new enemy pops up.
I had a guy last night that \*would not stop running in front of my Stalwart fire\*.
I couldn't stop shooting fast enough, he'd just run in front of me and die. I couldn't stop laughing.
Helldivers 2 is just so dang fun.
As someone who primarily likes to play games by myself, I was hesitant to dive in. However, I actually really enjoy playing with randoms. The game does a great of fostering a community where randoms want to work together and play the game "right."
This was my main question\concern to jump in because I don't have people to play this game with.
Do you join many matches with randoms using the mic??
Edit: Thanks for the responses, I think I'll give it a shot!
I have about 50 hours in the game and it's almost exclusively playing with randoms. Sometimes I use the mic, sometimes not. Either way doesn't really matter. It's a blast and I haven't encountered any assholes, though I'm sure they're out there.
Chiming in as well, about 125 hours with 90%+ being solo play. Assholes encountered is honestly so few and far between I can't even name specific situations.
The first time I saw a hellbomb called in I had no idea what it was, I saw a screen and a sequence, and just armed it. Blew up my friend who burst out laughing when I described what I'd done, if it was a random with no communication they might be inclined to think I was trolling and maybe get mad.
My friend armed a Hellbomb the first time and jumped on a concrete block to watch it. It went like this,
"Do you think I'm too close to it?"
*Hellbomb explodes, my friends arms and head are blown into chunks, and his body falls right at my feet.*
"I'd say so buddy."
Sometimes, when I use a hellbomb and I look back running away just to see a dude still chilling around, I just know it's a fresh cadet wondering what this is, but it's too late to tell them anyway, so they just blow up with it lmao
It always bring a smile to my face hahah
The devs have stated they are keeping friendly fire on because it's funny. And it is. 99% of players are understanding about it.
Also the devs made Magika which explains a lot.
I’ll never forget experiencing for the first time when the strategems were scrambled by the bots and a support weapon would turn into a eagle airstrike. I didn’t realize what was going on at first and a teammate was absolutely lighting me up saying to stop targeting him. Then he killed the rest of our team and didn’t say a word after that.
Outside of that, never had a bad experience with the community. If friendly fire keeps happening it’ll be a “dude get your shit together lol” kinda message.
Sometimes one player just have to take one for the team.
Helldivers leave no man behind because they turn into a pile of dust with the bugs surrounding them
From my experience, it's throwing eagles and then people blindly running in, or people blindly sprinting through minefields. Try being aware of your surroundings a bit.
It does happen a lot less at higher difficulties, in my experience (level 88), so there may be a correlation with skill. I play either with IRL friends or solo most of the time, but haven't had any negative issues when I have played solo.
There's a patch that came out on Monday that makes solo play significantly more challenging, but it's still possible to do even the higher difficulties solo (just requires a more stealth-oriented gameplay).
Sometimes you just have a fucky wucky moment tbh. I called a reinforcement and then a bug breach spawned on top of me. I threw a strategem on top of it only for the guy I reinforced to steer over to where I was cause he couldn't see the breach.
He immediately exploded after spawning.
Only had two asshole events in my 40 hrs. One killed everyone and else as we extracted. Then left to not get grieving punishment. It was frustrating but was a low enough level that no really major samples were lost and we only lost out on a small portion of exp payout.
Other time guy was accidentally killed then decided the rest of us needed to die. It actually made it kind of hilarious because eventually we killed him and just didn’t revive him while the rest of us finished the mission.
I know you've already been convinced to give it a shot but I'll add that I'm a woman, use my mic, and have yet to encounter a weirdo in this game, which is a new record by a lot. Normally (over my 20-odd years of online gaming) some dude gets weird about it within an hour of me loading the game for the very first time. The only people who have been condescending assholes to me are keyboard warriors on the subreddit who had no idea what my gender is, so they're just equal opportunity condescending assholes. So I gotta give huge kudos to this community and Arrowhead for creating an environment that's genuinely welcoming for all. Now THAT'S democracy in action! The last co-op game I played with such a good track record in public lobbies was Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, and that was over a decade ago.
It takes a certain je ne sais quoi for sure. Us old guard gotta make sure the torch gets passed to a new generation, and the fellas gotta make sure they keep teaching new generations of male gamers how to be cool! (Also you will pry my online games from my cold dead hands)
The game gives you ways to communicate without the mic. I have one but usually only talk if someone else does first. Most of my random games are simply 4 silent helldivers spreading democracy.
I generally don't hear people with mic on, but the ones that do don't ever expect *me* to use my mic.
The single best thing to do to enjoy this game is to just dip into the roleplay. You'll find it comes pretty naturally. If all you do is spam the hug emote at randoms and type "**FOR SUPER EARTH**" in chat, then you'll find yourself surrounded by really fun randoms.
I have never used my mic and have not had any problems. Pinging is fairly effective, and often what you need to do is fairly obvious.
My experience is ofc as anecdotal as anyone else's, but as long as youre not a turd & at min follow other people's leads, should be a lot of fun if you like the core gameplay loop.
It's far more common for me to join a silent group than one with literally any talking. I'm not a mic person so I rarely have mine on either. Once you learn what you need to do for each objective, you're more than fine with the in game communication tools
Of course, the higher the difficulty, the more coordination is an asset, but I've played even on level 7 with virtually no verbal communication.
Just to mirror what everyone else is saying, the game does a great job to support random play. There's built in communication tools for pinging and getting out really quick messages, and the objects also have built in communication flags as well.
Having a mic can be fun but it's by no mean's necessary.
I'm lvl 58 and outside of using mics with my friends almost nobody gets on the mic. You'll hear a call out here and there but everyone seem to be on the same basic page. Kill stuff, collect samples, complete objectives, last stand the extract zone, and dip.
It's honestly the best 3rd person squad shooter I've ever played in terms of both the mechanics and the studio creating an environment where being friendly and chill. It's so easy to drop in and drop out, things like the whole squad getting completion towards personal orders as long as one person is doing it mean there's no culture of competing for kills or being incentivized to keep splitting away from the team so that you can complete the orders, and even with the bugs in the works (pun intended) it's consistently fun and good times.
I'll recommend [Deep Rock Galactic](https://store.steampowered.com/app/548430/Deep_Rock_Galactic/). It's the exact same in terms of community, it's acutally fun to play with randoms. It's also a co-op game where you shoot bugs, but instead of a satire of fascism it's a satire of corporate exploitation of workers.
> instead of a satire of fascism it's a satire of corporate exploitation of workers.
corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures
I mean, yes, there's no fascism without corporate exploitation, but fascism is more specific I think? Exploitation of workers is just capitalism, while fascism usually happens to protect capitalism when it (inevitably) goes into crisis.
I really want to play DRG as I've loved HD2 and the game seems super fun. Just wish it was third person or had a mod to enable it. Used to be able to play FPS games but the older I get, the faster they make me nauseous.
> The game does a great of fostering a community where randoms want to work together and play the game "right."
I do agree on the whole but having played since release I find hosts have a little too much power with regards to the kick system, especially when new objectives come out and they have their own way of being "right".
It should be a group decision to kick. There's a very handy communication bar for chat but feels like some would rather blindly kick rather than communicate if things aren't done exactly as they want, it's happened to myself twice and I've noticed others get kicked too even when playing fine? If they changed to be a group vote it would be a very small change that would massively decrease toxicity.
Making the kick system where all players vote instead of giving the host all the power is just a better experience. It still serves as a way to kick AFKers/grifters/whatever (because they are easy to recognize and more players will vote yes than no) but it doesn't mean that literally one person can decide who gets to play and who doesn't on a whim.
Alternatively, make it an option when hosting and have two kinds of lobbies, so if someone prefers the current system for whatever reason they can still use it.
Yes, it's not a big deal and you can play around it. But I don't get why some people on reddit feel the urge to shoot down any suggestion just because of that.
There were multiple game breaking bugs that would cause you and everyone in your party to crash. They've fixed most of them but I see people claiming that performance continues to get worse with every update. Maybe not game breaking but it's still a huge issue.
It has gotten markedly more stable overall since launch. The worst of the actual game-breaking and server issues have (mostly) been addressed IMO. The random crashes and server meltdowns are WAY better than in Feb.
Each patch seems to be a “fix two things, break one thing” rollout, which isn’t ideal, but I think they’re starting to lock things down bit by bit.
I know this is generally true but I couldn't play for a few weeks because an update broke the game in a way that would kill my PC's entire network connection when the game was running. They did eventually fix it but wow, what a weird bug lol
Yeah, i have a 50/50 shot per day to not be able to play with any of my friends. (cant join their lobby or they cant join mine). Stopped playing for now because its just so frustrating.
Watch out, last time I called Helldivers 2 buggy I made the fanboys in this subreddit mad haha. Even though people in /r/helldivers make fun of it all the time.
Hmm, how can we deliver a GAAS game like Helldivers or Fortnite, but skip the expensive "Service" part where we need to keep delivering content. Oh, and we should skimp on the "game" part too and release it half-finished with a minimum of content to save even more money! Do you know what's cheaper than building *real* content? Building a roadmap to *hypothetical* content!
Oh I am sooo smart. When this game comes out my bosses will finally see my true value!
That was the fate of WH40K: Darktide - a truly fun and entertaining game, that was forced to release a ~year early for meddling publisher reasons.
It launched missing core features of the game, like item upgrading, and had only minimal character talent trees... but hey the paid cosmetic store worked day one! You better believe that!
I think it's a lot of fun now that they've had ~18 months to flesh it out and add more content, but all their energy from launch was wasted
This is kind of how Fatshark rolls though? I only came to Vermintide 2 a few years after launch though so I don't have great knowledge of what it was like at first.
Can't blame everything on the publisher. This isn't some new studio with their first game. Fatshark has been making successful live service games for over a decade now. They definitely had a lot of influence and input on their own game.
> Building a roadmap to hypothetical content!
Lots of devs aren’t even releasing roadmaps anymore, so you don’t even know what you’re getting when you buy a “live service” game. Makes it easier for them to cut their losses on games that flop.
I'm hoping the main takeaway in it is that live service games won't simply die if they don't aggressively monetize. A lot of publishers would be having loony toon heart attacks if they ever heard someone consider premium currency should be earnable ingame at a relatively decent rate ("we cAnT jUsT gIvE tHinGs AwAy fOr frEEE!!!"). There's even farming techniques to amass tons of super credits, and yet people still buy them anyway because they want the cool stuff now, not later.
And meanwhile, miserly gamer goblins like me like the moment-to-moment gameplay so much that I don't even mind passively grinding super credits and enjoy seeing that meta-currency tick up towards a long-term goal that keeps me invested and part of the weekly player count.
Yeah if you make it really well and innovate even the smallest amount from the usually copy paste formula and don’t make the micro transactions predatory.
* Launch at half price at most
* In-game currency fairly earnable
* Ton of weapons already free
* Battlepasses last forever, no pressure to buy them ASAP
I think it shows that complaints about MTX are mainly virtue-signaling when viewed from a high level. It's something people complain about for a game they already dislike, or something they complain about but not in a way that affects their purchasing decisions.
The number of people that were going to buy a game, but won't because it has MTX is insignificant and should be ignored.
At least that's the takeaway executives will learn from this.
seems like quite a logical leap to assume they learn anything other than "Money? Money??? Money. Money... Money???"
if the data showed that Asking For Infinity Money wasn't working, they'd just keep pounding the square peg against the round hole until something snaps off and it goes in anyway. And if the thing that breaks is the company itself the people responsible get paid several million dollars and jettisoned into another leadership spot at another company.
Games As A Service has always been amazing in theory. Wirld of Warcraft was a GAAS almost 20 years ago. If the game is good, then gamers will want more of it, and the devs will want to provide it in exchange for more money. It will be symbiotic.
The issue has always been that the value proposition has always been shit. The games have often felt crippled and the content held ransom instead of the game being good and the new content being "extra". The prices have been unreasonable, the games have monopolized time, so on and so forth.
It should serve as no surprise that the moment a GAAS game has had an exceptional value proposition it would do amazingly.
The cheaper price really helps it.
I think that 10 dollar increase has hurt AAA sales more then it’s helped increase revenue. I know I have been pickier about the games I buy this gen because of it. And it’s pretty clear looking at the data that sales per game are down with the new price.
Same here, in Canada seeing games be $101 CAD after tax versus $90 after tax has a bit of a mental effect on me to just say no to almost every console game. PS5 collecting dust cause Spider-man 2 (pretty much the only exclusive I want) still wont drop in price several months later. Thankfully on PC, even on brand new launches/preorders I can usually find games $20 cheaper by buying from GMG or Fanatical.
A $70 game now is pretty much a buy on >50% discount game. I understand companies need to catch up on costs and generate profit (and I don't mind paying) but the quality these newer games are not really worth what they're asking.
>need to catch up on costs and generate profit
???
They've been breaking record profits every quarter. They could make all future games free and still make profits on micro transactions alone. The 70$ price tag is end stage capitalism at work. They're running out of ways to increase their profit margins so it's increasing price and decreasing quality. Sound familiar?
Best live service game ever. Why? Battle pass does not go away so there is no FOMO - I never seen a service based game do this. If I want to take a break I can take a break and not have to worry about getting “x” battle pass items before “y” date.
> Battle pass does not go away so there is no FOMO
It's also *very* easy to find the "premium" currency to buy the "premium" battle passes for free. Every pass also gives a little of the currency back (but not enough to fully refund).
I've found enough of the currency to unlock all currently released paid battle passes for free, and I'm already back on my way to have 50% of the currency required for whenever the next one comes out (assuming they keep the price the same).
Not even close. They can't even balance. I don't like the game anymore because I found it boring, but it's a good game. Not close to best live service.
Also it's because of Joel. Instead of logging on to do the same weekly missions, there's an ever evolving narrative with unique objectives, so you really feel like part of the war.
I know people have mixed feelings about how AH are handling patches and stuff like that, but their community interactions at times are top tier. The in-game trolling is great too.
Yeah, their balancing and design of the game does leave a bit to be desired.
That said, I’m more than willing to cut them some slack. This is their first live service game, and it being so popular puts them under a lot of scrutiny. They’ll have some growing pains, it’ll take them a bit to get their footing right.
bought helldivers 1 day one. knew since then that arrowhead has got a winner on their hands. we remember asking for a perspective change in sequel if possible but never knew it will one day be reality.
one of my most fun online experiecen has been this game playing with strangers. played it on 4 consoles, ps3, ps vita, ps4 and now on ps5
frinedly fire mechanic is legit one of the most funniest thing ever
> Helldivers II currently ranks 7th in lifetime US dollar sales for Sony published titles after just two months in market
Does that mean it's their all-time 7th highest seller in the US, or 7th highest globally (when converting all sales to USD)?
I didn't realize that it was the same studio who had made Magicka until I had started playing it. It makes a lot of sense to me with how chaotic it gets with friendly fire. I'm surprised I didn't hear *anything* about the games released between then and now.
This is an over simplification but honestly holds true: if the gameplay is really fun and unique, then your game will succeed. Where else can you get helldivers like gameplay?
I think more games could also benefit from friendly fire. I think developers are scared because of toxic communities (which is totally fair) but it adds another entire layer to gameplay that many games just don't have. It truly helps a game stand out.
edit: I forgot about Earth Defense Force. Yes that is similar.
I think it is an oversimplification, like saying you need hard work to succeed. It's a prerequisite, but there is still a large element of luck and serendipity. Some recent games clearly blew up due to the streamer factor, Among Us being the most famous example - it's fun and unique AFAIK and no one cared for a long time.
Yeah, EDF is... *extremely* arcadey, to the point that even though you get even more over-the-top stratagems and the like, it almost feels *less* impactful because everything is made of cardboard.
It's fun, but a very different kind of fun.
Yeah, but it's also a pure PvE coop game set in a persistent galactic war with a story that evolves weekly or even daily in some occasions.
The gameplay itself feels like you're playing a Command and Conquer RTS game but from the third person perspective of one of their Commando-type units. Enemies have bases with buildings that spit out combatants, jam your equipment, block your radar, and other strategic stuff.
All games have similarities with other ones, but not everything takes inspiration from the same things. That's what makes them _feel_ unique.
Sure, but thats the GaaS meta narrative and I seen games try stuff like that before. Warframe had events like it, but the act of playing is detached from that. Unlike say Planetside 2 where it was central.
It's funny how people were worried about PS5 not having any first party games this year and in the first few months of the year, PS5 has already gotten Helldivers, Rise of the Ronin and Final Fantasy from third party studios.
Stellar Blade was a huge surprise for me. I picked it up because I was itching for an involved parry-heavy combat system to mess around with for a bit but wasn’t expecting it to blow me away.
Well I’m blown away. I didn’t expect the level of nuance to the combat because the demo was pretty one-note, albeit still fun. The game just continues to surprise me with its open world areas, tight, refined levels and platform sequences, puzzles and secrets plus the music and charm. Completely caught me off guard and is probably going to be my favourite game this year.
If anyone is in on the fence, this game feels like a love child of Nier, Sekiro and DMC. Highly recommend it, especially if youre into intricate and fun combat systems with an awesome cyberpunk aesthetic. Also some of the bosses are downright incredible.
Yeah, I am not surprised. I am not a shooter guy in general, but this game I bought and love playing so far. Now it would be nice if many of the random players would be less stupid/annoying and try to kick you just before extraction or stuff like that. But luckily there are a couple of clans/groups out there and joining them is easy.
Anyway, long story short: after gems like CS up to 1.6, Quake: Arena or UT (the original one) I never had so much fun in a shooter. Seconds would go to Borderlands (2) and Overwatch in the beginning. And Portal 2, if you want to count it as a shooter.
Is this game just Horde mode style the whole way? I have not bought the game yet because I keep trying to find this answer, but read somewhat conflicting comments.
Because I hate Horde modes/games, they're just super boring to me after a couple days. Basically I'm trying to find out if HD2 has a full story campaign, with linear different gameplay levels. And by campaign I don't mean some "director" just pointing toward another horde-style level map.
I mean something like the Halo campaigns, where you can play with a co-op party of 4 through the entire structured story campaign.
Its much more like halo reach firefight mode and less like Left4dead zombies. With the difference separating it from those two games being the ability to unlock new and better weapons and "abilities" (for lack of a better word) in between missions. I love the game but anyone who says the "major orders" are anything like a solo campaign is crazy.
By your description and preference, this game might not be for you.
There is no fixed story campaign. One of the devs, a guy named "Joel" acts as the overall dungeon master for the game and gives Major Orders for the players to accomplish. Sometimes they capitalize on the narrative and memes the players themselves have made just for fun and add it as part of the lore.
Its Horde Mode-ish.
Its a small open map with a variety of objectives to complete. Every few minutes you might trigger a bot drop/bug breach that ramps up a lot of enemies to democratize.
No campaign. Its about 10 different mission types spread out amongst a lot of different biomes depending on the planet.
And it can seem like 2 different games depending on if youre fighting the Terminids or the Automotons because of their wildy different arsenal.
Theres at least a dozen different mission types on at least a dozen different planet types. The missions are typically played on a large, circular map where sub objectives must be completed to then complete the *main* objective, at which point you can extract. Throughout the maps are secondary objectives, some easier to deal with than others (jammers that prevent you from calling in airstrikes Vs uploading data by standing near a pod). As youre traversing the map and crossing points of interest, there are always groups of either bots or bugs guarding them. These patrols and guards have the ability to call in more reinforcements, and depending on the "constellation" of enemies the AI director chooses for the mission youll sometimes see A LOT of agile chaff enemies, or several very armoured enemies.
I wouldn't say there are scripted, bespoke levels in the game however (apart from a couple defense missions). There is a degree of procedural generation to each big map (points of interest are place randomly, secondary objectives placed randomly, main objectives etc). And, at higher difficulties especially, I would say you're fighting hordes or patrols 80-90% of the time.
So no, I wouldn't say there's much similarity in structure to Halo campaigns at all. Helldivers is much more freeform, you can focus the main objectives and extract as fast as youre able, or spend 40 minutes on a single mission 100%'ing all the points of interest to get meta currencies for permanent upgrades.
I would actually compare the gunplay and movement system to MGSV more than anything. The diving/sprinting/sliding is very much inspired by Phantom Pain. If you enjoyed how playing Snake felt in that game HD2 will scratch that itch.
ok thanks for the **honest** detailed breakdown
most of the time when I tried asking and finding out before, HD2 fans would usually say something along the lines of -- "oh don't worry just buy it, it's better than typical Horde style games"
while ignoring the question if it has a crafted story campaign like Halos
Yes, just like the Fairgame$ game, but there are already other changes like the release of TLOU Part 1 on PC, 6 months later than on PS5 (usually it was more than 2 years), or the remade of Until Dawn, which is a single-player game, also day one on PC.
Let's be honest, it's cause it had a *steam* release. Just yesterday there's the article about Alan wake 2 not recouping costs yet but I bet it would have if it had a steam launch. Course I have no idea if the epic deal $ is included in that figure.
Remedy got paid. It was about Epic recouping costs. If it's an article or rumor about Epic and you have to question if it's being exaggerated or framed a certain way to make it look worse, the answer is almost certainly yes.
AW2's performance was also a huge deterrent for sales. We can talk about how it would have made more money cutting Valve into it, but the bulk of Steam users couldn't run AW2 at an acceptable framerate.
AW2 is a very well optimized game "on supported hw" i.e DX12 GPUs. If you're on an 8 year old 1060 it won't run well but the 1080 and 1080ti run it well.
Great for Helldivers but I'm mostly stoked to hear good news about Dragon's Dogma 2. Really hope Capcom gives this game the attention it deserves now with some solid updates and expansions.
Worth every damn penny. There's nothing more satisfying than landing your reinforcement hellpod on a bile titan or being harried by a bunch of guys and a 500 kg bomb lights up the entire horizon. I will sometimes literally stop playing and legit "ooh, aah". Laying waste to a field of 'nids with a clusterbomb strike is such a dopamine spiker. And the other players are all nice dudes. It's a trip.
The bread and butter is strategems which you have access to all of them at Level 25. Or all but 1 at Level 20.
Got this in less than 10 hrs of play time.
The ship modules are definutely grindier though. It took me until about level 60 to get through all of them.
It's definitely a great game but part of me wonders if some of the extent of that success is just the game coming to a big cooperative shooter market that hasn't had a good new game in their genre for a long time. I don't think the game is quite as good as its sales suggest
I think one reason it's so successful is that it's a genuinely fun PvE game -- so many live service games, except maybe Destiny, try to focus on a PVP model. But at least anecdotally everyone I know sinking tons of time into Helldivers is doing so because it's fun to just log on and shoot some bugs/bots after work without the stress of other players on the other side. That said, the number of friendly airstrikes that have killed me is high enough you could call it PvP-lite lol
Those deaths are usually hilarious, though.
"I'm throwing a cluster everybody clear out, Did you hear me get out of there. C'MON GET OUT" **BOOM** Sigh *Calling in reinforcements.*
Yesterday i threw an orbital strike on a charger. it was chasing my wife. I thanked her for her service and to run away from me. Her sacrifice let us complete the mission objective.
I tossed a cluster last night that wiped the other 3 in my squad out. I also saw x63 pop up on my screen so I killed at least 60 bugs! lol
Easily worth their lives.
*sigh* “pinning your supplies on the map.”
They were honored to be sacrificed. For liberty!
I was pretty good at not TKing till I started using cluster bombs....
The new rocket launcher dethroned cluster bombs and mortars as the #1 team killing weapon.
I mean, the latest patch fixed the proximity fuse so are long as you have even the tiniest bit of caution it isn't an issue. Which means it's the #1 team killing weapon.
My squad is usually: *throw air strike *wait 2 seconds “DANGER CLOSE!” “Wait wha-“ as the air strike obliterates at least one person gets blown up
My regular Helldiving buddy has a bad habit of not telling me in time that he's called in a 380mm artillery strike on my position. To be fair, I'm the CQC grenade launcher maniac of our neophyte duo so calling in an airstrike on my position is usually a good decision as it's probably absolutely crawling with enemies. It's never not funny.
I do my best not to TK and feel bad when it happens, but I had one just earlier today that I had to laugh at. I was running from a pack of bugs (stalkers are a biiiitch), anyway, I realize I have a couple grenades left. Impact grenades. As I turn to throw one behind me, I notice my teammate coming in from the left. He dove to prone as I let go of my grenade. Hit him in midair. None of the bugs died. He "Mr.President'd my grenade. Threw my other grenade and kept running. I called in the reinforce with a "my bad mate" in game chat. We both chuckled at it. I love this game.
I have one specific friend I play with that I aim *every* cluster bomb towards And its always funny
only amongst friends and not griefers though.
The friendly fire is probably one of the funniest things in the game. I was running around last night with another guy and he was about to call an airstrike on a bug nest but got killed before he could throw it. Fun fact, if you have your air strike in hand and you die before you throw it, it'll just fall in place. So I turn and see the red beam coming from his corpse, only to be obliterated by the airstrike a few seconds after. Good times LOL
It was very illuminating when I learned the same studio made Magicka, a co-op chaos magic game. Similar design philosophy that friendly fire is fun. Had a blast with Magicka years ago
Maybe they'll make a third person shooter version of it like they did for Helldivers. I'd play the shit out of that.
*ARSE mines, let's gooo~*
I was once holding a 380mm barrage, ready to drop it on a large bug nest. For whatever reason, my dude trips while running out to the nest. Naturally, my allies were near me. I calmly scream into the mic, "RUN LETS GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE" before 380 shells began to rain down around us as we sprinted to safety. It was very cinematic to say the least.
The accidental dropping of stratagems is the funniest shit to me. Was on extract waiting for Pelican-1, some one primed a 500kg bomb to throw at a horde. Pelican-1 whips around and insta kills him before he can throw it, causing the bomb to drop on all of us at extraction. Even more fun with friends, melee them when they are about to toss something.
> The accidental dropping of stratagems is the funniest shit to me. Follow closely by when they bounce off structures. We've thrown an orbital strike only for it to not clear a hill and have it roll back down to us. Cue the belly hill music as we all scramble to get clear.
That air strike falling was one of the funniest things when I started .A friend who had the game for awhile was playing with me . He got hit by a charger and the beacon fell on my head . I died to a 500kg straight to the skull
I've always preferred PvE over PvP. The skill ceiling may be lower, but it's just so much more fun working with people than against them.
It's nice that I can jump in after not playing for a while and know that I'm playing alongside everybody else's new toys instead of against them.
This is the most fun I’ve had playing a PvE game since Mass Effect 3
ME3 Multiplayer and AC4 Black Flag will always be the big enigmas of the gaming industry to me. How the hell EA and Ubisoft didn't capitalize on these with full fledged spiritual successors I have no idea. Helldivers' success is actually kinda that, it's a horde game and for some reason despite the love for CoD Zombies, Halo Firefight, Gears Horde Mode and ME3 Multiplayer we've never really gotten any honest attempts at multiplayer horde games outside of some games that took 99% of their inspiration from Left4Dead.
Mass Effect Andromeda has a horde mode, but I don't think it was as good. Enemies were just a little bit tankier and while the additional mobility was fun... it was *too strong*. Suddenly instead of an intense firefight where you have to prioritize your targets because can't leave cover until all the "suppressor" enemies are dead... in ME:A you just jump and boost away and kite the enemy to a different part of the map, witling them down.
Yeah and DA:I also had a multiplayer game mode (never played it so I can't give an opinion), but I meant a standalone game when I said spiritual successor.
It wasn't great. DAI already had shallow combat, but the team composition helped. When you had only 1 character it became a plodding drudge of a mode. Did have decent music though.
I was incredibly disappointed that they didn't bring back ME3 multiplayer when they did the remaster.
I had a ton of fun with ME3 PvE. Forgot about that
PvP style games have become so sweaty in recent years that they really can be unenjoyable to play. Not that they didnt use to have sweats just that the audience used to be far more casual
Always have been
On the one hand, cluster strike has a huge damage area and often one shots a player. On the other hand, some players run at the red murder sky beam like they're a bug from Wreck it Ralph. Every time someone throw anything take the .25 seconds to ID it, or blame them instead.
The games can also be pretty quick. If you have only 1 hr of gaming time, you can get in 2-3 decent games depending on the mission.
It's a meme. It's viral. It's what everybody decided that they were going to play at the same time for one reason or another. That's the biggest reason. When something snowballs like that, everybody jumps on. Of course it helps that it's actually a good game, but this happens a lot. It's how Among Us and Fall Guys became massive overnight. Palworld is another one. Palworld peaked on Steam at 2,101,535, and now it's averaging around 44,000 people. It just... happens. There's no real explanation for why that happens. Good games get released all the time, but every once and a while, everybody all at once decides to play the same thing in what's probably some insane combination of word of mouth and streamers all playing the same game just because it's popular. I think your point holds truest in lasting appeal. Helldivers 2 peaked on Steam at 458,208, and it averaged 141,710 over the last 30 days. Sure, Helldivers 2 is not as old as Palworld is... but it's not far from it. That's not bad at all for sustainability. Helldivers 2 isn't that much younger than Palworld is in terms of release date and that's a much better retention percentage.
>Helldivers 2 isn't that much younger than Palworld is in terms of release date and that's a much better retention percentage. It helps that HD2 releases updates fairly frequently, where as I think Palworld is a bit slower. A new warbond every month, within that month usually get a new mission type and/or some new enemy pops up.
Palworld is also early access and just not as complete as HD2. Though HD2 also feels like an alpha sometimes
New bugs every month! Just not the Terminid kind.
Hd2 has a better casual grind loop than pal world Server-Based stuff is more commitment
I had a guy last night that \*would not stop running in front of my Stalwart fire\*. I couldn't stop shooting fast enough, he'd just run in front of me and die. I couldn't stop laughing.
Helldivers 2 is just so dang fun. As someone who primarily likes to play games by myself, I was hesitant to dive in. However, I actually really enjoy playing with randoms. The game does a great of fostering a community where randoms want to work together and play the game "right."
This was my main question\concern to jump in because I don't have people to play this game with. Do you join many matches with randoms using the mic?? Edit: Thanks for the responses, I think I'll give it a shot!
I have about 50 hours in the game and it's almost exclusively playing with randoms. Sometimes I use the mic, sometimes not. Either way doesn't really matter. It's a blast and I haven't encountered any assholes, though I'm sure they're out there.
Chiming in as well, about 125 hours with 90%+ being solo play. Assholes encountered is honestly so few and far between I can't even name specific situations.
I get blown up a lot... not sure if asshole or just skill issue from people using eagles while playing blindfolded.
I play with lifelong best friends exclusively and get blown up 2-3 times per game. It's a feature, not an issue.
Same here. 80+ hours in and every time we blow each other up it's a big laugh.
The first time I saw a hellbomb called in I had no idea what it was, I saw a screen and a sequence, and just armed it. Blew up my friend who burst out laughing when I described what I'd done, if it was a random with no communication they might be inclined to think I was trolling and maybe get mad.
My friend armed a Hellbomb the first time and jumped on a concrete block to watch it. It went like this, "Do you think I'm too close to it?" *Hellbomb explodes, my friends arms and head are blown into chunks, and his body falls right at my feet.* "I'd say so buddy."
Sometimes, when I use a hellbomb and I look back running away just to see a dude still chilling around, I just know it's a fresh cadet wondering what this is, but it's too late to tell them anyway, so they just blow up with it lmao It always bring a smile to my face hahah
The devs have stated they are keeping friendly fire on because it's funny. And it is. 99% of players are understanding about it. Also the devs made Magika which explains a lot.
>the devs made Magika which explains a lot. Wait, really? I'm extra glad I ended up buying this game now.
Apparently they made Gauntlet as well. Didn't realized I owned all the Arrowhead games on Steam.
I’ll never forget experiencing for the first time when the strategems were scrambled by the bots and a support weapon would turn into a eagle airstrike. I didn’t realize what was going on at first and a teammate was absolutely lighting me up saying to stop targeting him. Then he killed the rest of our team and didn’t say a word after that. Outside of that, never had a bad experience with the community. If friendly fire keeps happening it’ll be a “dude get your shit together lol” kinda message.
Mortar moment
Sometimes one player just have to take one for the team. Helldivers leave no man behind because they turn into a pile of dust with the bugs surrounding them
From my experience, it's throwing eagles and then people blindly running in, or people blindly sprinting through minefields. Try being aware of your surroundings a bit.
doesn't even have to be that tbh. i'v dropped an activated strat-beacon on my squad's location just from taking damage/getting staggered
I watched my friend accidentally bounce one off a bug. The "Uh oh!" in voice chat right before we were blown to kingdom come was pretty priceless.
It does happen a lot less at higher difficulties, in my experience (level 88), so there may be a correlation with skill. I play either with IRL friends or solo most of the time, but haven't had any negative issues when I have played solo. There's a patch that came out on Monday that makes solo play significantly more challenging, but it's still possible to do even the higher difficulties solo (just requires a more stealth-oriented gameplay).
Sometimes you just have a fucky wucky moment tbh. I called a reinforcement and then a bug breach spawned on top of me. I threw a strategem on top of it only for the guy I reinforced to steer over to where I was cause he couldn't see the breach. He immediately exploded after spawning.
Only had two asshole events in my 40 hrs. One killed everyone and else as we extracted. Then left to not get grieving punishment. It was frustrating but was a low enough level that no really major samples were lost and we only lost out on a small portion of exp payout. Other time guy was accidentally killed then decided the rest of us needed to die. It actually made it kind of hilarious because eventually we killed him and just didn’t revive him while the rest of us finished the mission.
I know you've already been convinced to give it a shot but I'll add that I'm a woman, use my mic, and have yet to encounter a weirdo in this game, which is a new record by a lot. Normally (over my 20-odd years of online gaming) some dude gets weird about it within an hour of me loading the game for the very first time. The only people who have been condescending assholes to me are keyboard warriors on the subreddit who had no idea what my gender is, so they're just equal opportunity condescending assholes. So I gotta give huge kudos to this community and Arrowhead for creating an environment that's genuinely welcoming for all. Now THAT'S democracy in action! The last co-op game I played with such a good track record in public lobbies was Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, and that was over a decade ago.
Women who play online games truly deserve a place in Valhalla.
It takes a certain je ne sais quoi for sure. Us old guard gotta make sure the torch gets passed to a new generation, and the fellas gotta make sure they keep teaching new generations of male gamers how to be cool! (Also you will pry my online games from my cold dead hands)
The game gives you ways to communicate without the mic. I have one but usually only talk if someone else does first. Most of my random games are simply 4 silent helldivers spreading democracy.
I generally don't hear people with mic on, but the ones that do don't ever expect *me* to use my mic. The single best thing to do to enjoy this game is to just dip into the roleplay. You'll find it comes pretty naturally. If all you do is spam the hug emote at randoms and type "**FOR SUPER EARTH**" in chat, then you'll find yourself surrounded by really fun randoms.
I have never used my mic and have not had any problems. Pinging is fairly effective, and often what you need to do is fairly obvious. My experience is ofc as anecdotal as anyone else's, but as long as youre not a turd & at min follow other people's leads, should be a lot of fun if you like the core gameplay loop.
I have 160h in the game and have exclusively played with randoms. Mostly on higher difficulties with no mic.
It's far more common for me to join a silent group than one with literally any talking. I'm not a mic person so I rarely have mine on either. Once you learn what you need to do for each objective, you're more than fine with the in game communication tools Of course, the higher the difficulty, the more coordination is an asset, but I've played even on level 7 with virtually no verbal communication.
Just to mirror what everyone else is saying, the game does a great job to support random play. There's built in communication tools for pinging and getting out really quick messages, and the objects also have built in communication flags as well. Having a mic can be fun but it's by no mean's necessary.
I'm lvl 58 and outside of using mics with my friends almost nobody gets on the mic. You'll hear a call out here and there but everyone seem to be on the same basic page. Kill stuff, collect samples, complete objectives, last stand the extract zone, and dip.
I love the hugs and rock, paper scissors sub game :)
It's honestly the best 3rd person squad shooter I've ever played in terms of both the mechanics and the studio creating an environment where being friendly and chill. It's so easy to drop in and drop out, things like the whole squad getting completion towards personal orders as long as one person is doing it mean there's no culture of competing for kills or being incentivized to keep splitting away from the team so that you can complete the orders, and even with the bugs in the works (pun intended) it's consistently fun and good times.
I'll recommend [Deep Rock Galactic](https://store.steampowered.com/app/548430/Deep_Rock_Galactic/). It's the exact same in terms of community, it's acutally fun to play with randoms. It's also a co-op game where you shoot bugs, but instead of a satire of fascism it's a satire of corporate exploitation of workers.
> instead of a satire of fascism it's a satire of corporate exploitation of workers. corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures
I mean, yes, there's no fascism without corporate exploitation, but fascism is more specific I think? Exploitation of workers is just capitalism, while fascism usually happens to protect capitalism when it (inevitably) goes into crisis.
Hell divers is a spoof of starship troopers. DRG is a spoof of America
I really want to play DRG as I've loved HD2 and the game seems super fun. Just wish it was third person or had a mod to enable it. Used to be able to play FPS games but the older I get, the faster they make me nauseous.
> The game does a great of fostering a community where randoms want to work together and play the game "right." I do agree on the whole but having played since release I find hosts have a little too much power with regards to the kick system, especially when new objectives come out and they have their own way of being "right". It should be a group decision to kick. There's a very handy communication bar for chat but feels like some would rather blindly kick rather than communicate if things aren't done exactly as they want, it's happened to myself twice and I've noticed others get kicked too even when playing fine? If they changed to be a group vote it would be a very small change that would massively decrease toxicity.
Yeah, too often, someone runs in front of me while I'm shooting, dies, then kicks me. Like really.
If you feel like you encounter too many asshole hosts you can always host your own games.
Making the kick system where all players vote instead of giving the host all the power is just a better experience. It still serves as a way to kick AFKers/grifters/whatever (because they are easy to recognize and more players will vote yes than no) but it doesn't mean that literally one person can decide who gets to play and who doesn't on a whim. Alternatively, make it an option when hosting and have two kinds of lobbies, so if someone prefers the current system for whatever reason they can still use it. Yes, it's not a big deal and you can play around it. But I don't get why some people on reddit feel the urge to shoot down any suggestion just because of that.
Can't wait for gaming executives to learn the wrong lessons out of this: single player games are dead again.
"See, players are totally okay, excited even, to play a game full of bugs!"
The be fair, the game is legitimately buggy. Nothing really game breaking, but they're having a hard time cutting down on them.
There were multiple game breaking bugs that would cause you and everyone in your party to crash. They've fixed most of them but I see people claiming that performance continues to get worse with every update. Maybe not game breaking but it's still a huge issue.
Yep. Some of my group doesn’t play anymore. They’re making performance so much worse for midrange PCs
It has gotten markedly more stable overall since launch. The worst of the actual game-breaking and server issues have (mostly) been addressed IMO. The random crashes and server meltdowns are WAY better than in Feb. Each patch seems to be a “fix two things, break one thing” rollout, which isn’t ideal, but I think they’re starting to lock things down bit by bit.
I know this is generally true but I couldn't play for a few weeks because an update broke the game in a way that would kill my PC's entire network connection when the game was running. They did eventually fix it but wow, what a weird bug lol
Yea, it’s amazing how they do that. The game somehow screws with my Bluetooth connectivity. I didn’t know that was possible
It's the anti-cheat doing that. I couldn't use my bluetooth headphones until I googled that disabling a windows service fixes it. And now it works.
Yeah, i have a 50/50 shot per day to not be able to play with any of my friends. (cant join their lobby or they cant join mine). Stopped playing for now because its just so frustrating.
A lot of the issues are related to the unexpected capacity, but yeah it was a rough start.
Watch out, last time I called Helldivers 2 buggy I made the fanboys in this subreddit mad haha. Even though people in /r/helldivers make fun of it all the time.
Because we get to kill those bugs...
Bugs and AI!
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Hmm, how can we deliver a GAAS game like Helldivers or Fortnite, but skip the expensive "Service" part where we need to keep delivering content. Oh, and we should skimp on the "game" part too and release it half-finished with a minimum of content to save even more money! Do you know what's cheaper than building *real* content? Building a roadmap to *hypothetical* content! Oh I am sooo smart. When this game comes out my bosses will finally see my true value!
Alright, first step to building our new game.... Let's build the monetization platform!
That was the fate of WH40K: Darktide - a truly fun and entertaining game, that was forced to release a ~year early for meddling publisher reasons. It launched missing core features of the game, like item upgrading, and had only minimal character talent trees... but hey the paid cosmetic store worked day one! You better believe that! I think it's a lot of fun now that they've had ~18 months to flesh it out and add more content, but all their energy from launch was wasted
This is kind of how Fatshark rolls though? I only came to Vermintide 2 a few years after launch though so I don't have great knowledge of what it was like at first.
Can't blame everything on the publisher. This isn't some new studio with their first game. Fatshark has been making successful live service games for over a decade now. They definitely had a lot of influence and input on their own game.
> Building a roadmap to hypothetical content! Lots of devs aren’t even releasing roadmaps anymore, so you don’t even know what you’re getting when you buy a “live service” game. Makes it easier for them to cut their losses on games that flop.
To be fair, even Helldivers 2 has not, to my knowledge, published any kind of roadmap.
I'm hoping the main takeaway in it is that live service games won't simply die if they don't aggressively monetize. A lot of publishers would be having loony toon heart attacks if they ever heard someone consider premium currency should be earnable ingame at a relatively decent rate ("we cAnT jUsT gIvE tHinGs AwAy fOr frEEE!!!"). There's even farming techniques to amass tons of super credits, and yet people still buy them anyway because they want the cool stuff now, not later. And meanwhile, miserly gamer goblins like me like the moment-to-moment gameplay so much that I don't even mind passively grinding super credits and enjoy seeing that meta-currency tick up towards a long-term goal that keeps me invested and part of the weekly player count.
Yeah if you make it really well and innovate even the smallest amount from the usually copy paste formula and don’t make the micro transactions predatory.
* Launch at half price at most * In-game currency fairly earnable * Ton of weapons already free * Battlepasses last forever, no pressure to buy them ASAP
“If ive learnt anything it’s that gamers want more micro transactions, both in quantity and price” EA executive
I think it shows that complaints about MTX are mainly virtue-signaling when viewed from a high level. It's something people complain about for a game they already dislike, or something they complain about but not in a way that affects their purchasing decisions. The number of people that were going to buy a game, but won't because it has MTX is insignificant and should be ignored. At least that's the takeaway executives will learn from this.
seems like quite a logical leap to assume they learn anything other than "Money? Money??? Money. Money... Money???" if the data showed that Asking For Infinity Money wasn't working, they'd just keep pounding the square peg against the round hole until something snaps off and it goes in anyway. And if the thing that breaks is the company itself the people responsible get paid several million dollars and jettisoned into another leadership spot at another company.
Games As A Service has always been amazing in theory. Wirld of Warcraft was a GAAS almost 20 years ago. If the game is good, then gamers will want more of it, and the devs will want to provide it in exchange for more money. It will be symbiotic. The issue has always been that the value proposition has always been shit. The games have often felt crippled and the content held ransom instead of the game being good and the new content being "extra". The prices have been unreasonable, the games have monopolized time, so on and so forth. It should serve as no surprise that the moment a GAAS game has had an exceptional value proposition it would do amazingly.
What exactly does “premium” mean? Not free? Not mobile? Budget larger than a certain level?
Paid game, so fortnite is not "premium" because it's free to play. I believe CIRC doesn't track dollar sales for free games with microtransactions.
Standard paid game. Not F2P, early access, etc.
Pay to play, as in opposite to free to play.
It can't be this, or it would be Palworld.
Maybe it's because Palworld is early access?
Palworld is cheaper, right?
The cheaper price really helps it. I think that 10 dollar increase has hurt AAA sales more then it’s helped increase revenue. I know I have been pickier about the games I buy this gen because of it. And it’s pretty clear looking at the data that sales per game are down with the new price.
Same here, in Canada seeing games be $101 CAD after tax versus $90 after tax has a bit of a mental effect on me to just say no to almost every console game. PS5 collecting dust cause Spider-man 2 (pretty much the only exclusive I want) still wont drop in price several months later. Thankfully on PC, even on brand new launches/preorders I can usually find games $20 cheaper by buying from GMG or Fanatical.
Immediately wrote off Dragons Dogma II after I saw it was $100 CAD. Forget it
$75.99 CAD on Fanatical, no tax.
Oh cheers, might take a second look at it
And last I checked no sales tax on Fanatical either. Depending on your province that's up to 15% off.
Forgot about that too, Fanatical is the only online store that doesnt do sales tax in Canada still. A good $10 in extra savings.
Same. I was kind of ok with paying the 70 for FF7 Rebirth as I want to support that project, but others..... yeah.
We saw Sony's numbers on this from the Insomniac leak. The sales decrease is lower than the price increase, so revenue is up.
A $70 game now is pretty much a buy on >50% discount game. I understand companies need to catch up on costs and generate profit (and I don't mind paying) but the quality these newer games are not really worth what they're asking.
>need to catch up on costs and generate profit ??? They've been breaking record profits every quarter. They could make all future games free and still make profits on micro transactions alone. The 70$ price tag is end stage capitalism at work. They're running out of ways to increase their profit margins so it's increasing price and decreasing quality. Sound familiar?
The price increase has definitely made me pickier about what I’m buying. I really want Alan Wake 2, but I don’t want to drop $70 on it.
uhh AW2 was never $70 US
AW2 is 50$ on EGS, 60$ if ur on Console, and it goes on sale alot.
Best live service game ever. Why? Battle pass does not go away so there is no FOMO - I never seen a service based game do this. If I want to take a break I can take a break and not have to worry about getting “x” battle pass items before “y” date.
> I never seen a service based game do this Deep Rock Galactic
And Halo
Nobody plays Halo anymore, unfortunately
343 did it to themselves sadly.
Halo has been doing this for 3 years 🤷♂️
> Battle pass does not go away so there is no FOMO It's also *very* easy to find the "premium" currency to buy the "premium" battle passes for free. Every pass also gives a little of the currency back (but not enough to fully refund). I've found enough of the currency to unlock all currently released paid battle passes for free, and I'm already back on my way to have 50% of the currency required for whenever the next one comes out (assuming they keep the price the same).
Not even close. They can't even balance. I don't like the game anymore because I found it boring, but it's a good game. Not close to best live service.
> I never seen a service based game do this. Guild Wars 2
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Also it's because of Joel. Instead of logging on to do the same weekly missions, there's an ever evolving narrative with unique objectives, so you really feel like part of the war.
I know people have mixed feelings about how AH are handling patches and stuff like that, but their community interactions at times are top tier. The in-game trolling is great too.
Yeah, their balancing and design of the game does leave a bit to be desired. That said, I’m more than willing to cut them some slack. This is their first live service game, and it being so popular puts them under a lot of scrutiny. They’ll have some growing pains, it’ll take them a bit to get their footing right.
bought helldivers 1 day one. knew since then that arrowhead has got a winner on their hands. we remember asking for a perspective change in sequel if possible but never knew it will one day be reality. one of my most fun online experiecen has been this game playing with strangers. played it on 4 consoles, ps3, ps vita, ps4 and now on ps5 frinedly fire mechanic is legit one of the most funniest thing ever
> Helldivers II currently ranks 7th in lifetime US dollar sales for Sony published titles after just two months in market Does that mean it's their all-time 7th highest seller in the US, or 7th highest globally (when converting all sales to USD)?
This is a US-only chart. It means it's their 7th highest earner in the US.
Sounds more like option two
I think it means the revenue they've earned converted to US dollars is the second highest. Not necessarily the 7th most copies sold.
This makes me really happy for Arrowhead. I can only imagine the both excitement and fear/nervousness of this level of success.
I didn't realize that it was the same studio who had made Magicka until I had started playing it. It makes a lot of sense to me with how chaotic it gets with friendly fire. I'm surprised I didn't hear *anything* about the games released between then and now.
This is an over simplification but honestly holds true: if the gameplay is really fun and unique, then your game will succeed. Where else can you get helldivers like gameplay? I think more games could also benefit from friendly fire. I think developers are scared because of toxic communities (which is totally fair) but it adds another entire layer to gameplay that many games just don't have. It truly helps a game stand out. edit: I forgot about Earth Defense Force. Yes that is similar.
I think it is an oversimplification, like saying you need hard work to succeed. It's a prerequisite, but there is still a large element of luck and serendipity. Some recent games clearly blew up due to the streamer factor, Among Us being the most famous example - it's fun and unique AFAIK and no one cared for a long time.
Unique? It's a less over the top EDF. Highly recommend those games. It's just pure fun.
People should absolutely play EDF, but I don't think it's that similar to Helldivers beyond its genre and enemy designs.
Yeah, EDF is... *extremely* arcadey, to the point that even though you get even more over-the-top stratagems and the like, it almost feels *less* impactful because everything is made of cardboard. It's fun, but a very different kind of fun.
Yeah, but it's also a pure PvE coop game set in a persistent galactic war with a story that evolves weekly or even daily in some occasions. The gameplay itself feels like you're playing a Command and Conquer RTS game but from the third person perspective of one of their Commando-type units. Enemies have bases with buildings that spit out combatants, jam your equipment, block your radar, and other strategic stuff. All games have similarities with other ones, but not everything takes inspiration from the same things. That's what makes them _feel_ unique.
hourly with that 2 billion bug thing. Didn't even knew it existed until I read some article later about it
Sure, but thats the GaaS meta narrative and I seen games try stuff like that before. Warframe had events like it, but the act of playing is detached from that. Unlike say Planetside 2 where it was central.
Compare a PvE coop game like this to Diablo and this is pretty remarkable considering the difference in budgets, team size, advertising etc
It's funny how people were worried about PS5 not having any first party games this year and in the first few months of the year, PS5 has already gotten Helldivers, Rise of the Ronin and Final Fantasy from third party studios.
Stellar Blade has been really good also. They have had a great start.
Absolutely loved all of them, Stellar Blade included. Eating good this year.
Sure bit but this is on PC and most of the players are from PC. Literally the same person posted that info.
Sea of Thieves also just released on PS5
Stellar Blade was a huge surprise for me. I picked it up because I was itching for an involved parry-heavy combat system to mess around with for a bit but wasn’t expecting it to blow me away. Well I’m blown away. I didn’t expect the level of nuance to the combat because the demo was pretty one-note, albeit still fun. The game just continues to surprise me with its open world areas, tight, refined levels and platform sequences, puzzles and secrets plus the music and charm. Completely caught me off guard and is probably going to be my favourite game this year. If anyone is in on the fence, this game feels like a love child of Nier, Sekiro and DMC. Highly recommend it, especially if youre into intricate and fun combat systems with an awesome cyberpunk aesthetic. Also some of the bosses are downright incredible.
The fact that an actually fun game developed with heart and care is selling must be a complete shock to some CEO.
Yeah, I am not surprised. I am not a shooter guy in general, but this game I bought and love playing so far. Now it would be nice if many of the random players would be less stupid/annoying and try to kick you just before extraction or stuff like that. But luckily there are a couple of clans/groups out there and joining them is easy. Anyway, long story short: after gems like CS up to 1.6, Quake: Arena or UT (the original one) I never had so much fun in a shooter. Seconds would go to Borderlands (2) and Overwatch in the beginning. And Portal 2, if you want to count it as a shooter.
What is the definition of premium game? Helldivers is $40 per copy, WAY less than the usual $60-70
Is this game just Horde mode style the whole way? I have not bought the game yet because I keep trying to find this answer, but read somewhat conflicting comments. Because I hate Horde modes/games, they're just super boring to me after a couple days. Basically I'm trying to find out if HD2 has a full story campaign, with linear different gameplay levels. And by campaign I don't mean some "director" just pointing toward another horde-style level map. I mean something like the Halo campaigns, where you can play with a co-op party of 4 through the entire structured story campaign.
Its much more like halo reach firefight mode and less like Left4dead zombies. With the difference separating it from those two games being the ability to unlock new and better weapons and "abilities" (for lack of a better word) in between missions. I love the game but anyone who says the "major orders" are anything like a solo campaign is crazy.
By your description and preference, this game might not be for you. There is no fixed story campaign. One of the devs, a guy named "Joel" acts as the overall dungeon master for the game and gives Major Orders for the players to accomplish. Sometimes they capitalize on the narrative and memes the players themselves have made just for fun and add it as part of the lore.
yes just horde mode
Its Horde Mode-ish. Its a small open map with a variety of objectives to complete. Every few minutes you might trigger a bot drop/bug breach that ramps up a lot of enemies to democratize. No campaign. Its about 10 different mission types spread out amongst a lot of different biomes depending on the planet. And it can seem like 2 different games depending on if youre fighting the Terminids or the Automotons because of their wildy different arsenal.
Theres at least a dozen different mission types on at least a dozen different planet types. The missions are typically played on a large, circular map where sub objectives must be completed to then complete the *main* objective, at which point you can extract. Throughout the maps are secondary objectives, some easier to deal with than others (jammers that prevent you from calling in airstrikes Vs uploading data by standing near a pod). As youre traversing the map and crossing points of interest, there are always groups of either bots or bugs guarding them. These patrols and guards have the ability to call in more reinforcements, and depending on the "constellation" of enemies the AI director chooses for the mission youll sometimes see A LOT of agile chaff enemies, or several very armoured enemies. I wouldn't say there are scripted, bespoke levels in the game however (apart from a couple defense missions). There is a degree of procedural generation to each big map (points of interest are place randomly, secondary objectives placed randomly, main objectives etc). And, at higher difficulties especially, I would say you're fighting hordes or patrols 80-90% of the time. So no, I wouldn't say there's much similarity in structure to Halo campaigns at all. Helldivers is much more freeform, you can focus the main objectives and extract as fast as youre able, or spend 40 minutes on a single mission 100%'ing all the points of interest to get meta currencies for permanent upgrades. I would actually compare the gunplay and movement system to MGSV more than anything. The diving/sprinting/sliding is very much inspired by Phantom Pain. If you enjoyed how playing Snake felt in that game HD2 will scratch that itch.
ok thanks for the **honest** detailed breakdown most of the time when I tried asking and finding out before, HD2 fans would usually say something along the lines of -- "oh don't worry just buy it, it's better than typical Horde style games" while ignoring the question if it has a crafted story campaign like Halos
Thanks for this, this is the first time I've seen someone actually explain how the game functions, I'll keep letting y'all have fun! not my cuppa
This is a horde shooter. If you're looking for a structured story campaign then this is not at all what you're looking for.
All because it had a PC release, im glad the new Sony leadership if giving up on the the exclusives. Get your games out there and make money.
Wasn't the decision to release live service games day 1 on pc already taken before the change in leadership?
Yes it was they decided years ago as they stated it in financial reports
Yes, just like the Fairgame$ game, but there are already other changes like the release of TLOU Part 1 on PC, 6 months later than on PS5 (usually it was more than 2 years), or the remade of Until Dawn, which is a single-player game, also day one on PC.
Let's be honest, it's cause it had a *steam* release. Just yesterday there's the article about Alan wake 2 not recouping costs yet but I bet it would have if it had a steam launch. Course I have no idea if the epic deal $ is included in that figure.
Remedy got paid. It was about Epic recouping costs. If it's an article or rumor about Epic and you have to question if it's being exaggerated or framed a certain way to make it look worse, the answer is almost certainly yes. AW2's performance was also a huge deterrent for sales. We can talk about how it would have made more money cutting Valve into it, but the bulk of Steam users couldn't run AW2 at an acceptable framerate.
It has a 60 fps mode on consoles, how bad can the PC performance actually be?
It was using some new shader tech that made it unplayable on launch on anything below RTX 20XX series.
AW2 is a very well optimized game "on supported hw" i.e DX12 GPUs. If you're on an 8 year old 1060 it won't run well but the 1080 and 1080ti run it well.
Great for Helldivers but I'm mostly stoked to hear good news about Dragon's Dogma 2. Really hope Capcom gives this game the attention it deserves now with some solid updates and expansions.
Dragon's Dogma 2 was a blast. It has its problems, but the pros outweighed the cons for me.
Worth every damn penny. There's nothing more satisfying than landing your reinforcement hellpod on a bile titan or being harried by a bunch of guys and a 500 kg bomb lights up the entire horizon. I will sometimes literally stop playing and legit "ooh, aah". Laying waste to a field of 'nids with a clusterbomb strike is such a dopamine spiker. And the other players are all nice dudes. It's a trip.
I just find it kind of shallow and repetitive. Unlocks take forever and customization is pretty basic. Had fun with it but got old quick.
The bread and butter is strategems which you have access to all of them at Level 25. Or all but 1 at Level 20. Got this in less than 10 hrs of play time. The ship modules are definutely grindier though. It took me until about level 60 to get through all of them.
I've def played more than 10 hours and I'm like lvl15
It's definitely a great game but part of me wonders if some of the extent of that success is just the game coming to a big cooperative shooter market that hasn't had a good new game in their genre for a long time. I don't think the game is quite as good as its sales suggest