With years of development reportedly planned for the live-service sci-fi shooter, Helldivers 2 is at an arresting and pivotal junction. Terminids are thriving in Helldivers 2’s Into the Unjust update content and associable Major Orders with Automatons surely receiving their due sometime in the future, for instance, and customization has proven to only be gnawing at the tip of a bottomless iceberg. Now that primary weapon customization is something players can indulge in—barring certain primaries that don’t have customizable attachments—it’s unclear what customization options Arrowhead might implement next.
Colorway patterns for armor, helmets, and capes could be one hypothetical option, allowing players to take a beloved armor set and give it their signature flair to differentiate it from others, for example. However, transmogrification in Helldivers 2 has been decried before, and it’s unknown, frankly, if gear will ever have its own customization. If it does, it might make the most sense to hone in on capes, cosmetic garments that have no bearing on what armor passives players may have, and there’s already a quirky physics glitch that could inspire a brand-new line of apparel: ponchos, let alone any cape-style variants.
Helldivers Can Adorn Themselves With a Poncho, if Only for a Moment
It’s a bit tricky to execute reliably—it’s an unintended cape physics glitch, after all—but players are perfectly capable of temporarily fashioning their cape around their Helldiver avatar by turning and spinning sharply to fling the material around the character model. It’s also possible to don an ephemeral toga towel when the cape wraps primarily around the avatar’s torso and not their shoulders, and this, too, unravels into the cape ordinarily draping along players’ backsides in a matter of moments afterward.
Capes themselves have a lot of neat designs, especially when they have narrative and community-based significance via commemorative capes that Helldivers 2 occasionally doles out for particularly notable events. But naturally, with cosmetic apparel of the like seemingly feasible in-game, it would be phenomenal if players were actually given a diverse catalog of ponchos to wear, taking inspiration from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s Cal Kestis ponchos, perhaps.
Helldivers 2 Introducing Cape Styles Could Be a Whole Can of Worms
Of course, the likelihood of a cosmetic option substituting capes is incredibly low. Capes have story-related importance—not that that’d be a reprehensible oversight, as many players would probably love swapping their cape for a poncho—and, more than a year after its launch, there has been no tease, leak, or otherwise explicit affirmation in Helldivers 2’s development that the three-piece cosmetic formula of armor, helmets, and capes will ever be challenged or usurped.
Still, Arrowhead would be giving itself a much greater pool of cosmetics to draw inspiration from if it broadened its horizons further, including not only ponchos but also potentially cloaks, robes, scarves, and so forth.
That may stray a little far from Helldivers 2’s focal point, which is its shooter action and the plight of managed democracy, though it could serve as a wealth of content in the years to come. Ponchos would simply be a brilliant stepping stone, and one that may already be tremendously exciting and dynamic on its own.
Plus, it’s not as if sci-fi influences such as the ones Helldivers 2 has wholeheartedly embraced wouldn’t be bereft of flavorful outerwear aesthetics; Helldivers 2’s Dune inspirations in the Dust Devils Warbond, for example, could’ve complemented its Fremen stillsuit-inspired DS-10 Big Game Hunter armor with a long shawl of thin fabric, rather than completing the set with a hood and the Eternal Corona cape. In the meantime, players wanting to wear something other than a suit of armor and a cape may find themselves incessantly pivoting on their Destroyer as they attempt to turn their cape into a poncho for a fleeting yet magnificent second.
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
