Helldivers 2 has a complicated history with its own difficulty. One of the moust famous (or infamous) moments in the game's history was a major controversy over nerfs to the players' arsenals in an attempt by Arrowhead Game Studios to introduce more difficulty. Since then, the studio has more often leaned on adjustments to NPC units and weapons, rather than taking power out of Helldivers 2 players' hands, which is way better for the game's explosive power fantasy. Still, that fantasy relies on sufficiently daunting enemies who make the player's power feel well-spent, so it's good to hear that Helldivers 2's developers are still looking for ways to make the game harder.
It should be said that Helldivers 2 is already a versatile game in the difficulty department; it launched with nine tiers of difficulty, offering appropriate challenge levels for both the most casual and most masochistic players. Since then, it has added a tenth difficulty tier and a litany of daunting new enemies in each faction, but Arrowhead remains committed to making the game more difficult. On the one hand, this is great, since it makes every hour spent playing Helldivers 2 feel more worthwhile, but on the other hand, Arrowhead should be careful to ensure this objective remains in balance with other ways to improve the game.
Helldivers 2 Xbox Recruits Have a Hard Lesson to Learn That Many Players Still Haven’t
The response to friendly fire in Helldivers 2 is no less salty today than at launch, and its Xbox launch this summer may tell a familiar tale.
Difficulty is One Piece of the Helldivers Puzzle
Increasing Helldivers 2's difficulty (whether by updates and additions to the enemy roster, or new tiers of mission difficulty) simply makes sense for a few reasons:
- Higher difficulty rewards player mastery in a major way. Every hour spent perfecting aim, memorizing enemy weaknesses, and fine-tuning loadouts directly gets put to the test when Helldivers 2 turns up the challenge level.
- More menacing enemies and difficulty levels reflect the escalation of the Second Galactic War perfectly. It's only natural that the Terminids, Automatons, and Illuminate would up their game as the battle rages on.
- In particular, new difficulty levels come with higher output of XP, Requisition Slips, and Samples, materially rewarding players for being willing to risk it all.
However, difficulty is only one dial Arrowhead can turn to fine-tune Helldivers 2. It shouldn't come to rely on difficulty as the primary way to engage players. The problem with doing this is that making a game more and more difficult ultimately has diminishing returns, because there comes a point when enemy forces are so overwhelmingly oppressive that the game simply feels unfair, and therefore unfun. Higher difficulty levels are only as interesting as the ways that the player can deal with them, so it would be best if Helldivers 2 pursues them in moderation, not as a primary goal.
Helldivers 2 Has a Lot of Ways to Improve Itself
Ideally, any future addition to Helldivers 2 that makes it harder will be paired with other system changes that diversify the experience. For example, applying new enemies or higher difficulty tiers becomes exponentially more interesting when paired with new Helldivers 2 mission types, stratagems, or guns. Perhaps Arrowhead could even add entirely new categories of primary weapons, for example, or use its growing roster of human NPC allies to create elaborate new escort missions. Helldivers 2 still has lots of room to grow. Best of all, a new faction in Helldivers 2 could one day provide a whole new sense of challenge on its own.
Difficulty is inherent to Helldivers 2's identity; every trailer from the time of the game's reveal highlighted the overwhelming odds faced by Super Earth's Helldivers, and the scorched-earth tactics players will need to survive. That means it's great to hear that Arrowhead is still exploring options to make the game harder, so long after launch. At the same time, difficulty can't be treated as the primary way to expand the game; Arrowhead wants its players to succeed, after all. Any future increases to difficulty should be used to entice players to engage with all the other new things the game has to offer.
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
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Extraction Shooter, Action, Science Fiction
