After a lot of interest from the Xbox side, maybe more than any other game PlayStation publishes, Helldivers 2 launched in 2025 a full 18 months after the PS5/PC versions and has easily found a place in my regular game rotation thanks to it being way more fun than it has any right to be.

Taking a lot of cues from the Starship Troopers movie in terms of its tone (less the book), you are a Helldiver: a specialist soldier sent into enemy territory via orbital drop pods to deal justice to the enemy hordes you encounter in the name of “managed democracy”. Nothing is to get in the way of delivering justice so expect to shoot at just about everything or die trying.

The game itself is a third person PvE shooter that allows a squad of four to jump in together and tackle missions of varying difficulty on procedurally generated maps. On top of the missions there are three factions to deal with: the insect like Tyranids (most like the Arachnids from Starship Troopers), the Terminator like Automatons and the alien/zombie Illuminate. All have unique units of varying levels of toughness that you’ll encounter as you progress.

The typical experience begins with players starting on the team leader’s “super destroyer” (everything good in this game is “super”!) where a difficulty is chosen from “trivial” to “super helldive”, a planet is selected from those in active combat (which can change depending on existing campaigns involving all players, and finally a mission is chosen. From this point, players head to a hellpod, select their loadout strategems which are abilities to call in support items such as airstrikes, sentry guns, or power weapons. When ready, it’s showtime and the squad gets dropped onto the map.

With the firepower you have at your disposal, the best way to describe the experience is that you’ll die a lot, and it’s usually from your own stupidity. Whether it be tackling too many foes at once, attracting too much attention completing an objective or accidentally dropping an orbital barrage on your own head. That might sound discouraging and it can be at first but on the flip side, standing back and watching a 500kg bomb drop and produce a flash that’ll give the HDR settings on your TV a good thrashing does not get old. The moments when you execute a perfect attack, take out an objective from a mile away or exfil with minimal losses feel like real achievements and it’s easy to get caught in the “one more go” vibe.

As you play you accrue medals, super credits, requisition slips and samples. The req slips and samples are used to enhance your super destroyer’s capabilities, such as faster airstrikes while the medals and super credits go towards warbonds which unlock additional cosmetics and unique gear. One warbonds is free to start with and others can be quickly unlocked by purchasing super credits. It’s worth nothing that that it’s entirely possible to earn super credits without having to pay and additional money… most warbonds include bonus credits to help you on your way too.

On the presentation side, the opening cinematic is just perfect in setting both the tone and expectations on what you’ll be doing. I do t get tired of watching it. The visuals are pretty good overall too but it’s the explosions that are really something special. It’s been a while that I’ve played a game where I’m happy to step back for a moment, regardless of what’s going on around me, and enjoy the fruits of whatever shenanigans I’ve employed. And there is just enough destructive elements thrown in to make you feel like every little bomb dropped has left its mark.

The audio is stellar and really hammers home the impact of both the carnage you cause and that of the enemy will inflict on you. The music is brilliant and the main theme will run through your head constantly with variations used throughout such as the bombastic mission launch version and then the more mellow post exfil one. At one point or another you hum to it which is a good sign it works.

One technical aspect I have to give Arrowhead Game Studios (the developer) major kudos for is just how quickly the game can drop you into a mission from a cold start… you can literally be diving into a mission with a party within a minute of launching the game which makes this a perfect pick up and play game. No waiting in lobbies or for servers to kick in. And the same goes for joining friends who are in the middle of a mission… if there is a free spot in the party you can join the squad and be diving in a short time. I wish more games did this.

I’ve been surprised with how much Helldivers 2 has grabbed me – while it does evoke some comparisons to third person shooters of the past, the self inflicted chaos, great production values and humour make it a fun experience that is entirely unique. This might now be my favourite game of 2025, and it’s a PlayStation game on Xbox… who would have thought? 😉

Helldivers 2 is out now for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. Played on an Xbox Series X.