With just above 1000 hours in Helldivers 2, you'd think I'd recommend it with high regards, giving it praise, and ultimately telling you that not buying this game is a crime against humanity.

It isn't.

Helldivers is in the middle of an identity crisis, where it feels as though the developers are constantly going back and forth on what they want the game to be. Don't get me wrong, I ♥♥♥♥ with realistic standards in games from time to time, but only if that game maintains that realistic standard. Day one of game launch, there is an armor with a passive known as "Democracy Protects" - Basically giving you a coin flip on whether or not you would die to lethal damage - Despite this, Arrowhead seems to really wanna push the realism reality, when only a small percentage of the playerbase actually wants it.

Another thing that bothers me about the game, is the genuine disrespect that Arrowhead seems to have for it's playerbase. After what felt like a war between the players and the developers, we managed to get through to them on why we want weapons buffed, instead of good ones being nerfed. However, there have been times where Arrowhead has changed things, sometimes in secret, and other times after promising not to.

On top of this, there are problems in the game that, rather than be fixed by the developers, are almost "bandaid"ed via Warbonds. Ragdolling has been an issue in this game since launch, and despite being a known issue for a long time, still barely ever recieves adjustment - Low and behold though, that one of the new Warbonds specifically helps players reduce the chance of being ragdolled. Of course, Super Credits can be earned for free, but to people who really want to have that passive, $10 isn't an issue to spend. I understand that they have to continue to make money to fund the game, but it feels as though that they create problems that are then solved via Warbonds, which is pretty scummy.

There's also the issue of how Arrowhead goes about buffing / nerfing things in game. A large majority of their changes towards enemies, weapons, stratagems, are just pure number changes. Increase damage by blank%, lower armor by blank amount, etc - And while there are instances where that is all that's needed to be changed, it shouldn't be the answer to every single problem that either the community or the developers have. There are creative ways to make things more viable, rather than making a number bigger or smaller, and with how creative we have seen Arrowhead be, it's a shame we don't get to see it in terms of balancing.

Finally, the biggest thing that frustrates me about the game, and might come as a shocker; The Commnity.

If all you do is play Helldivers 2, and don't interact with the community via Reddit, Discord, or YouTube? The in-game community is a blast. They are fun, play into the role of being a fanatic of Managed Democracy, and ultimately do their best to ensure a fun game for everyone.

That's not to say it's all sunshine and rainbows - The story of Helldivers 2 is completely determined by the playerbase, which while fun, can be extremely frustrating. There are nuances and actions that can be taken by us the player, that it feels as though a majority of the playerbase doesn't understand. Things like Gambits, Supply Lines, Defense Campaigns, Resistance Rates - I don't claim to be an expert on these things either, even I still get some of this stuff wrong, but that's an issue. There's no tutorial for these things, and even the starting tutorial is lackluster considering what we now deal with compared to the game's launch. Having a game's narrative being dictated by the community, and not explaining the systems behind it, leads to a lot of situations where resentment start to brew.

In the Helldivers 2 Discord, the term "blankdiver" - Usually replaced with the words "bug", "bot", or "squid" is banned, because there have been instances where story beats were lost, due to people not playing the story and only playing on one front. There are terms like "doomdivers" and "glazedivers", meant as insults towards people who either overly praise or overly insult the game, but are often used just by people expressing opinions on trivial things that don't have much impact on the game whatsoever.

I love Helldivers 2, and there really is no other game like it - But it desperately needs to figure out what it wants to be, and it needs to stick to it.