Now that we are literally weeks away from the end of the year, it’s a perfect time to look back, reflect, and wonder about certain video games that have “graced our presence” in 2024. One of the biggest games of the year in terms of sales and news stories was, without a doubt, Helldivers 2 by Arrowhead Game Studios. The game had some hype going into launch, but no one expected it to be one of the biggest sales hits of the year, surpassing over 12 million copies sold in just three months! That was insane to ponder…and it was just as insane to witness how things went downhill after that.
While gamers were enamored with the cheesy story about “Super Earth” and risking their lives and the lives of their squad mates to try and get the victory, the gameplay was what really had people locked in. They wanted to try out the various weapons, fight the various bug foes, and claim numerous planets for Super Earth. Yet, over time, that gameplay got repetitive, and then Sony tried to force PlayStation accounts on people just to play the game, even in countries where the accounts weren’t even an option to get!
Between these and other issues, the number of players that were online dropped by 90% within record time, and Arrowhead has been fighting to get things back to how they were. To its credit, it has dropped new “Warbonds” full of new gear, weapons, and enemies, and the team is constantly releasing new missions for players to try and accomplish together. However, it’s still not enough in the eyes of many.
That makes it so interesting that on Steam right now, on the Helldivers 2 Store Page, you’ll see that the most recent reviews of the game are “Overwhelmingly Positive” and that the game’s overall reviews are “mostly positive.”
What do we make of this? Simply put, it means that those who have tried the game recently have really liked it, possibly because they got to avoid the overall controversies that have hit the game over the last ten months. The game’s overall rating went down due to the PlayStation Account issue, so seeing it climb back up is a big deal, even if it’s only incrementally right now.
Whether the game fully rebounds is anyone’s guess, especially with the slew of games out right now and set to come out in 2025. Arrowhead has a true challenge ahead of it, and we’ll have to wait and see if they do what’s best for Super Earth.
