With the timeless combo of always-on friendly fire and aggressive swarms of enemies, hilarious deaths tend to just happen inHelldivers 2. Set in a sci-fi dystopian future that is a colorful cross between the grimdark Warhammer 40K and the satirical fascism of Starship Troopers, Helldivers 2 returns to the incredible setting established in the first game, though this time bringing a much more intimate combat experience due to the closer third person camera angle, rather than the old top-down twin-stick shooter of the firstHelldivers.
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This shift in camera angle has created a whole new dimension to the ridiculous lethality carried over from the first game, enhancing it for much more in-your-face brutality that’s hard not to laugh at. From resurrecting your friend only to have their pod crush you on impact, to getting mowed down by your own sentry turret, you’re just as likely to kill yourself and your friends as you are theTerminid or Automaton hordes— and that’s all part of the fun!
It’s An Ugly Planet — A Bug Planet
On my first mission to the icy planet of Heeth in a small two-person squad with my friend, we practically tripped over ourselves with how many times we killed each other or stumbled into aTerminid patrolthat became a near endless swarm of back-to-back Bug Breaches. We were constantly running away, forgetting to reload, calling in resupplies or Machine Guns that quickly got overrun by bugs before we could loot them, and dropping Orbital Strikes and Reinforcement pods on ourselves in a desperate attempt to catch a moment of respite. It was a little stressful in those opening missions, sure, but it was mostly just hilarious.
Aside from your primary weapons, secondary weapon, and grenades, your Stratagems are your biggest asset on the field. They offer an incredible display of raw power, and they can be just as deadly to you and your allies as they are to the enemy. Whether you’re calling in a Machine Gun and you’re standinga slivertoo close to the impact, or your ownsentry turret gets a bit jealousof your other friendships in the field, these Stratagems will simply crush you immediately and brutally if given the opportunity — and that’s not even factoring in theStratagems that are literal massive bombs.
Sometimes, it’s a stray bit of physics resulting in ahilarious death in the game’s tutorial. Other times, it’s a quirk of geography thatresults in an ill-timed explosive death.
Automatons Stole My Lunch Money
For me, my favorite chaos wtf moment unfolded during my first Automaton mission. I’d cut my teeth against the Terminids, who can quickly overwhelm you with their numbers, but I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what to expect there. The thing with Automatons, though, is that they shoot back. Oh, and they’re heavily armored Terminators basically, so any well-planned operation can quickly go sideways once a patrol and a few Dropships show up, quadrupling the enemies on the field in a matter of moments. That’s what happened to us.
We had just called down a couple of Orbital Strikes, destroying one of the Automaton gun towers and blowing a huge hole in the side of their defenses (and blowing up one of our squadmates). But once those other unexpected enemies showed up, and strategic repositioning became critical (read: running for our lives), that’s when things got bad. On our panicked retreat, I was desperately punching in the Stratagem code to call our fallen ally back to the field. I threw his beacon ahead of me, rather than on my current position, since he’d drop right in the middle of a group ofDemocracy-hating Automatons, but then a stray grenade or some kind of explosive blast hit just behind me, and I ragdolled across the craggy terrain, skipping like a stone on a pond, before my ally’s Hellpod crushed my body into the ground, killing me.
The thing with Automatons, though, is that they shoot back.
Another time, I called down a Machine Gun near the extraction point…only to realize that bugs were pouring into the area, pushing me back from actually being able to pick up and use said Machine Gun (see vid).
Most of these errors come from inexperience and experimentation. With friendly fire baked in as a core feature of the game, and with just how chaotic these battlefields can get with all the swarming enemies and explosions coming from every which way, accidental deaths are simply part of the job. Once you know the proper time and place to deploy specific Stratagems, you’ll mostly avoidtrapping your ally in the middle of a horrifying mine field. With more familiarity, these wild tools become instrumental in pushing back the Terminid and Automaton menaces. But even with experience,these mishaps will still happen. A stray turret will inevitably spin around and tear a hole through me to get at the enemies on the other side. Sometimes, when I’m carpet bombing a Terminid nest, I realize too late that I’m standing on the edge of the carpet.
Getting Good Feels Awesome
With practice, you’ll be able to turn these haphazard mistakes into devastating blows to your enemy. There’s nothing more Starship Troopers thandirecting your own Reinforcement Pod down to crush a massive Bile Titan beneath youbefore stepping out of the pod and back into the action. As deadly as any single encounter can be, mastering these explosive systems creates anincredible feedback loop. The key to Stratagems is in the planning — the more reactive and panicky the use, the more likely for a comedy of errors to ensue. Now, rather than placing a turret at eye-level, I’ll search for a high outcropping of rock to (mostly) avoid any stray shots ripping through me or my allies. With coordination, you can deliver some incredible carnage, like droppingfour devastating Orbital Strikeson a single outpost, ensuring total annihilation of your enemies.
The bombast and over-the-top explosions and impassioned cries of ‘For Democracy!’ from me and my allies just delivers this incredible and ridiculous gameplay loop; even whenthings go horribly wrong, I can’t help but laugh at what can only be described as a colossal comedy of errors. I’m never out of the action too long — the game provides a generous number of Reinforcement uses for me and my allies, making it so these screw-ups never sting too badly. Most of the time, they’ll earn a sensible chuckle at the very least, if not a full-on belly laugh at the absurdity of it all. I’m convinced this is planned as part of the ebb and flow of tension within any given mission. As stressful as getting off the right Stratagem in the heat of battle can be, those ridiculous ‘one in a million’ errors completely slice through said tension and help bring me back to a healthy baseline — at least until the next Bug Breach.
Helldivers 2
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