Helldivers 2’s next Premium Warbond, Control Group, is incredibly exciting due to all the possible ramifications it could have. Coming in hot off of R&D’s desk, Control Group is outfitting players with hilariously perilous equipment that is repurposed from alien Illuminate technology, which seems highly unstable and unwieldy. Helldivers 2’s titular playerbase is lucky enough to be the ones chosen to test this technology in the field, and in-game deaths are sure to soar astronomically if full team loadouts are composed of Control Group items.
Helldivers 2 seems to largely draw from in-game status effects or popular genre archetypes for its Warbonds, which is terrific as it ensures every corner of the playerbase’s loadout preferences is considered as well as accommodating for fun science-fiction tropes in entertainment that, so long as it’s somewhat adjacent to Starship Troopers or another graphic, violent, and hysterical property, may be considered tonally relevant. That said, the Control Group Warbond is especially promising as it could and should hopefully imply that future Warbonds will integrate players with bots, bugs, and squids much more intimately.
Helldivers 2’s S-Tier Illuminate Loadout is More Versatile Than You Think
Due to their comparable strengths and weaknesses, Helldivers 2's Squiddivers and Botdivers may soon find kindred spirits in each other's loadouts.
Helldivers 2’s Control Group Warbond May Go Down as a Story of Hubris
Helldivers 2’s Control Group Warbond, which releases in a few days, is perhaps the game’s most thrilling yet with the premise that players will be able to fight squid scum with their own alien technology. However, nearly every piece of equipment prepared for field testing also comes with warnings that it can be tremendously hazardous to one’s life.
The A/LAS-98 Laser Sentry, for example, is probably only going to be brought into missions if players have a death wish, and anyone who does so is likely to be kicked. The VG-70 Variable is fascinating as a primary weapon, even if it doesn’t immediately look like it’ll have elaborate weapon customization potential, but using its overpowered seven-barrel shot hurling players backward might not be ideal—not that anyone who wields the 
R-36 Eruptor Rifle won’t be able to relate.
Moreover, Helldivers 2’s AdrenoDefibrillator armor passive is high-risk, low-reward. At the end of the day, though, the implementation of such alien technology could have a massive effect on Helldivers and their safety, and how this premise might metastasize or mutate in future Warbonds could have considerable ripples relating to every enemy faction.
Helldivers 2 Might Be Foreshadowing Bot, Bug, and Squid Warbonds
If having alien technology too close to home results in the Illuminate infiltrating Helldivers personally and parasitically, a phenomenal future Warbond idea could see players actually transforming into voteless with a unique armor set aesthetic and passive. It might be challenging to have every aspect of the squids adapted into practical items that players would then be able to spend medals on in a Warbond, but even just an armor set that allows players to look like a squid would probably be exceptionally popular.
Of course, Helldivers 2 shouldn’t quit while it’s ahead; if Control Group is any indication, it would be great to receive Warbonds where R&D have also appropriated and repurposed Automaton and Terminid technology or biology, bending their individual wills and weaponizing their distinct traits for weapons and gear that players could wield against them.
Plus, Warbonds that allow players to adorn armor sets to look like bots or bugs would be doubly special, if that is indeed what Helldivers 2 happens to be teasing or alluding to. In the meantime, it’s anyone’s guess what the consequences of the Control Group Warbond may be, or whether this Warbond’s premise will extend beyond squids and to each of Helldivers 2’s enemy factions.
Helldivers 2
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- February 8, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Arrowhead Game Studios, Nixxes
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Publishing
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- bitsquid
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- All platforms
- Franchise
- Helldivers
- Number of Players
- 1-4 players (online)
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Extraction Shooter, Action, Science Fiction
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
