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Each gaming generation has its defining title. The mid-to-late 1980s had Super Mario Bros, and the late 90s had games such as Final Fantasy 7, Super Mario 64, and Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow. The early 2000s had Halo: Combat Evolved, and this has continued throughout gaming history. In more recent times we saw the world go bananas for Pokemon Go, with millions of gamers finally touching grass to go and be the very best like no one ever was, just this time in the real world.
A couple of years later saw the release of Fortnite: Battle Royale and between 2018 and 2019 you couldn’t move without seeing a kid do his best Floss or Take The L impression. We even saw gaming be pushed into the mainstream in a way never seen before when Ninja was featured on the cover of ESPN magazine.
Since then, gaming hasn’t had a defining title that has brought the community, and even the mainstream audience, together quite like Helldivers 2. Some could argue that Baldur’s Gate 3 achieved that, and it did to a lesser extent. But, not since the release of Fortnite have I seen so many people come together as a community to share their experiences with a game quite like Helldivers 2.
It has become the talk of the town in some places, with strangers talking about it in person, it has reunited old friends who want to jump in and bring democracy to the galaxy, and its online community is incredibly engaged whether it is on the official Discord, sub-Reddit, or the many Facebook groups dedicated to the game.
As a gamer, I have been around the block in my nearly 34 years on this planet and 30 years playing video games, beginning my journey with Super Mario World on the SNES. Since then, I have always kept my finger on the pulse of the gaming industry and, at least in my own experience, very few games have been able to do what Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 has achieved.
And that is to bring millions of gamers together with one common goal which has allowed them to foster a community of like-minded people who want to share these moments with others, raids in World of Warcraft are one of the few experiences I can liken it to. As most other large games, such as Call of Duty and League of Legends, are mainly PVP-based, there isn’t a sense of shared purpose like with Helldivers 2.
Despite being a PVP game, Fortnite did achieve this in the early days with its heavy focus on the lore and story, which had gamers talking about what was coming next. From debating whether Tilted Towers would be destroyed, and what would happen at the start of the upcoming season, and who can forget the black hole event that made international headlines as millions of gamers spent two days starting at a screen wondering what the future held for Fortnite. But, Helldivers 2 just feels different.
If I had to explain it, I would say it is because we are the Helldivers. We’re not Link, Master Chief, or Kratos, we’re just a low-ranking soldier that is used as cannon fodder in the government’s war on the Automatons, Terminids, and whatever future enemies threaten Super Earth, this is just like real life.
Many of us like to think we’re the main character in this universe, and life is our story. But in reality, we’re all just NPCs in someone else’s story and they’re NPCs in ours, and that is the case in Helldivers 2. We’re not a named hero, we’re not the focus of the story, we are just an untrained soldier who is thrust into battle. And if we die, another soldier will drop from the sky and the fight continues. I think a lot of people subconsciously connect with that, perhaps more than being the hero who is going to slay the dragon and save the world.
This could be why many of its fans, especially online, almost adopt the persona of a Helldiver when interacting with other players. It isn’t uncommon to see people in the community using terms such as ‘treason,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘Liber-tea,’ as well as using the button combinations for Stratagems to express their points. An example could be if someone in the community says something negative about the game, it is often met with replies such as “this sounds like an act of treason,” paraphrasing language used in the game.
It is all in good fun, but it feels like people are adopting the persona of a Helldiver because they have found a place where they belong. I do not doubt that lifelong friendships will be forged in the war against the Automatons and Terminids that will extend beyond the lifecycle of this game, and in an ever-increasingly lonely digital world, that isn’t a bad thing.
Circling back to Fortnite, the game achieved a similar thing but more with real-life friends, often those that had drifted apart as people become busy with their own lives whether it is focusing on their career or raising a family, the same could also be said for the impact that Pokemon Go had back in 2016.
When Pokemon Go was first released, I too was one of those people who walked around my town with my eyes glued to my phone trying to find a Pikachu or Jigglypuff to add to my collection. I bumped into school friends I hadn’t seen in a decade who were doing the same thing, and it was nice to share that experience with them and reconnect, even if it was for a brief moment.
When Fortnite was released, I reconnected with another school friend who I hadn’t seen since 2006 because we saw that we both played the game. So we jumped into some games together, shared how life had been treating us in the years since school, and he even got me my first Victory Royale. I will always remember the feeling of seeing the Victory Royale screen appear for the first time and that moment can never be replicated.
Helldivers 2 is already providing these moments for gamers across the world. Who knows, maybe in five or six years someone is going to be sitting and writing an article about the next generation-defining game and comparing it to the memories they made on Helldivers 2 in 2024.
