Summary
- Helldivers 2 offers a complete gaming experience on launch day, with extensive content and hours of gameplay at an affordable price.
- The game's live-service model delivers consistent updates, new weapons, and enemies to keep players engaged and coming back for more.
- Premium Warbonds in Helldivers 2 enhance gameplay without being pay-to-win, offering a fair and enjoyable experience for PvE gamers.
One of the biggest recent trends in gaming, the live-service model has simultaneously been associated with some of the best games in recent memory, and some of the worst. In theory, a live-service game should offer the ideal gaming experience, promising fans a never-ending experience that's often completely free to play. However, in practice, many live-service games will often fail to deliver on this core premise, with many publishers/developers instead using the model as more of a facade to hide half-baked content that they plan to fix post-launch. Helldivers 2, thankfully, is a far cry from that.
Released back in February, Helldivers 2 has managed to make quite a name for itself over the last few months, apparently selling over 8 million copies so far across both PS5 and PC. Though it's still early doors for Helldivers 2, and there's plenty of time for it to all go suddenly downhill, right now it's the perfect example of a live-service game done right. If Civilization 7 was ever going to model itself after a live-service game, Helldivers 2 is the ideal choice.
Civilization 7 Could Make Great Use of Helldivers 2's Live-Service Strategy
Helldivers 2 Is The Perfect Example of Live-Service Done Right
One of the biggest things that sets Helldivers 2 apart from the live-service games that came before it is its launch-day state. On release day, Helldivers 2 had a fairly impressive amount of content. Two unique enemy factions with plenty of distinct unit types, and a slew of unlockable Stratagems, weapons, and equipment all came together to make Helldivers 2 feel like the complete package on launch, especially when the game retailed for just $40. To unlock everything in Helldivers 2's base game, players would have to spend at least 50 hours blasting away Terminids and Automatons and it's debatable whether that's worth a reduced price point or not.
But as a live-service game, Helldivers 2 promises an ever-evolving ecosphere, and that's exactly what it's delivered over the last few months. Set in a satirical Sci-Fi universe in which players take on the role of soldiers spreading "democracy" throughout the galaxy, Helldivers 2's core gameplay and narrative loop revolves around its live-service component, with players capturing planets in real-time by performing missions together. As the game's live-service story has continued to play out over the last few months, Helldivers 2 has been continually updated with new weapons, Stratagems, and enemy types in a consistent stream that's kept players coming back week after week.
On top of that, Helldivers 2 offers a genuinely great version of a battle pass. Called Premium Warbonds, these battle passes give players access to new weapons, armor, and equipment.
While these can drastically improve a player's arsenal, Helldivers 2's strict focus on PvE gameplay keeps it from being pay-to-win, and the ability to earn the in-game currency needed to purchase Warbonds by simply finding caches littered throughout a mission makes them even more impressive. All of Helldivers 2's Premium Warbonds also remain available forever, meaning that there's no fear of missing out.
How Civilization 7 Could Use Helldivers 2's Live-Service Model
The Civilization franchise has always dabbled with big DLC expansions, and Civilization 6 tripled down on that concept, delivering over 20 separate DLCs throughout its life, with the last one dropping in March of last year. So, a natural next step for the Civilization franchise might be some kind of live-service approach, where new world leaders are added to the game frequently after its initial launch.
Of course, this could fail in a million different ways, but if Civilization 7 stuck closely to Helldivers 2's approach to live-service content it could find a successful new avenue that benefits all parties involved. This means that Civilization 7 would need to launch at a lower price initially, but still have plenty of content on day one to ensure that both long-time fans and newcomers feel as though they've gotten their money's worth, regardless of promises of any future content.
From there, Firaxis could start introducing new leaders and nations gradually over the course of the following months, letting players either purchase them as part of a battle pass system with real-world currency or earn enough credits via gameplay to unlock them. Civilization 7 could even bring back Civ 3's leader cosmetics to fill out the battle pass a bit more.
Helldivers 2
- Released
- February 8, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
The Galaxy’s Last Line of Offence. Enlist in the Helldivers and join the fight for freedom across a hostile galaxy in a fast, frantic, and ferocious third-person shooter.
URGENT BROADCAST – SUPER EARTH ARMED FORCES
Freedom. Peace. Democracy. Your Super Earth-born rights. The key pillars of our civilization. Of our very existence. But the war rages on. And everything is once again under threat.
Join the greatest military force the galaxy has ever seen and make this a safe and free place to live.
BECOME A LEGEND
You will be assembled into squads of up to four Helldivers and assigned strategic missions. Watch each other’s back – friendly fire is an unfortunate certainty of war, but victory without teamwork is impossible.
LOADOUTS
Rain down freedom from above, sneak through enemy territory, or grit your teeth and charge head-first into the jaws of combat. How you deliver liberty is your choice; you’ll have access to a wide array of explosive firepower, life-saving armor and battle-changing stratagems… the jewel in every Helldiver’s arsenal.
REQUISITION
Super Earth recognises your hard work with valuable Requisition. Use it to access different rewards that benefit you, your squad, your destroyer ship and our overall war effort.
THREATS
Everything on every planet wants you dead. That’s what we’re dealing with. Each enemy has distinct and unpredictable characteristics, tactics, and behavior – but they all fight ferociously and without fear or morality.
THE GALACTIC WAR
Capturing enemy planets, defending against invasions, and completing missions will contribute to our overall effort. This war will be won or lost depending on the actions of everyone involved.
We stand together, or we fall apart.
- 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
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- Franchise
- Helldivers
- Number of Players
- 1-4 players (online)
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Extraction Shooter, Action, Science Fiction
- Metascore
- 83
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC & PS5
