The fight for Super Earth continues in Helldivers 2, the sequel to developer Arrowhead Game Studio’s 2015 original, in which fans join the ranks of the galaxy’s most elite extermination squad. Unlike the original top-down shooter, Helldivers 2 offers third-person action, enlisting players in an expansive cooperative campaign to rid the galaxy’s various sectors of the Terminid and Automaton scourge. The title features no true beginning or end, opting instead for a form of progression that pools the entire community's collective efforts in freeing individual planets and expanding the galaxy. However, Helldivers 2 makes this slow struggle truly addictive, by immersing players in a world in which failure is just as fun, and ten times as funny, as a glorious victory. One week into Super Earth’s campaign to control the galaxy, Helldivers 2 has already proven itself one of modern gaming’s best co-op titles, and a must-play experience for the PS5.

The universe of Helldivers offers fans the chance to live out their wildest sci-fi power fantasies while locked in an eternal struggle for humanity’s survival. The original Helldivers took place sometime in the distant future, with Earth - now called Super Earth - beset on all sides by hostile forces. Helldivers 2 picks up exactly 100 years later, with Super Earth having prevailed. However, it now finds itself contending with another imminent threat - enemies on completely different planets - including the bug-like Terminids and the mysterious Automatons. To secure the future of Super Earth, its government enlists the Helldivers once more, sending them throughout the galaxy's various sectors to bring peace, prosperity, and gratuitous violence to every planet they encounter.

As players impart the lessons of militarized democracy to each planet’s inhabitants, they are tasked with completing missions such as eradicating nests, fixing a communications tower, uploading data, or surviving waves of enemies. These objectives have been deemed essential to furthering Super Earth’s glorious ideals. Additionally, each mission includes multiple side objectives, which players will need to complete if they hope to achieve a five-star rank and earn the best rewards. Helldivers 2 can be gruelingly difficult at times, especially as players take on its harder difficulties. What makes the experience truly exceptional, however, is that its fierce military campaign is handled with all the seriousness of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Visually, Helldivers 2 delivers on every front, making the transition from the original’s top-down camera to a third-person vantage all the more exhilarating. The title’s enemies, environmental hazards, and isolated structures all breathe life into its otherwise cold and barren planetscapes. Likewise, time spent aboard players’ ships delivers satisfying sci-fi visuals, especially for a live-service title. However, the visuals aren’t fully on display until players engage their enemies in chaotic, highly explosive combat. Whether the player is calling down an Orbital Strike, unloading on hoards of rapidly encroaching Terminids, or defending an Evac site, Helldivers 2 is looking its best when the screen is filled to the brim with action. Luckily for fans, the title finds ways to up the ante every chance it gets.

The world of Helldivers is heavily inspired by Starship Troopers, and Helldivers 2 wears this inspiration proudly on its sleeve. Opening with a comedic, and horrifically violent, PSA, players old and new are introduced to the Helldivers' efforts to extend humanity’s presence across the galaxy, before completing their training, naming their Super Destroyer ship, and setting off into the openness of space. Their goal: to defeat swarms of alien hostiles, or die trying. Players begin with basic equipment and armaments but unlock more through the completion of various missions, each of which contributes to the overall efforts of the Helldivers community on that planet. As planets and their respective sectors are overtaken by Super Earth’s forces, additional sectors, featuring even more planets, are unlocked, steadily progressing humanity towards its goal of galaxy-wide colonization.

Players operate out of their unique Super Destroyer ship, which acts as Helldivers 2's central hub, from which they can embark on missions, and join other players' ongoing efforts on available planets. As players complete missions in Helldivers 2’s available sectors, they gain new equipment, various currencies, and XP, all of which increase their ability to take on enemy forces. They also contribute to the success of Major Orders, global, time-sensitive goals that the entire Helldivers 2 community must complete together. These Major Orders set the course for the title's overarching story, leaving the players themselves to write the history of Super Earth's campaign across the stars.

Helldivers 2 is, at its heart, a live-service title, but its unique approach and incredibly tight gameplay manage to avoid nearly every pitfall that the genre has grown infamous for. However, the title does have a wide range of currencies to keep track of, all of which can be used to improve the stats and abilities of a player's Helldiver or their ship itself. Super Credits, the title's only hard currency, can be used to buy items from the Superstore catalog. Medals can be spent on Warbonds, which feature unique and powerful equipment, as well as special cosmetic items. Samples can be used to permanently improve a Helldiver's stats. Lastly, Requisition Slips, which are only earned through mission completion, are used to improve the Super Destroyer ship and outfit it with unique weapons and deployable support items.

Completing one of Helldivers 2's missions on the highest available difficulty unlocks the next hardest difficulty for fans to attempt, creating a cycle of progression that feels truly rewarding. With each subsequent difficulty, more missions, tougher enemies, and better weapons are all made available, forcing the player to adapt to new objective formats and overcome increasingly overwhelming odds with their fellow Helldivers. Though players can choose to take on these missions alone, Helldivers 2 is best experienced alongside other players. Not only does a complete squad make surviving missions more manageable, but it also allows players to experience the full breadth of combat mechanics that Helldivers 2 has to offer, as well as their often comedic results.

Basic combat in Helldivers 2 is similar to many other third-person shooters. Before each mission starts, players build individual load-outs consisting of a set of primary and secondary weapons and a single type of handheld explosive. However, Helldivers 2’s unique approach to combat also includes special armaments called Strategems, which range from delivery of additional handheld weapons, such as anti-material rifles and rocket launchers, to ship-based weaponry, including orbital laser strikes, automated turrets, and hovering robot companions. Utilizing a stratagem requires players to rapidly input specific directional codes, some of which can only be used a few times per mission. It’s these Strategems that differentiate Helldivers 2 from other squad-based shooters, as the implementation and applicability of each strategem to a particular mission can make or break a squad’s ability to accomplish their goals and evacuate safely.

Each player can bring a limited amount of Strategems to each mission, and squads need to work together to ensure that they bring appropriate and effective Strategems for each mission's unique parameters. As players progress, they can earn and spend Requisition Slips to unlock additional Strategems, allowing them to scale the strength of their ship's weaponry alongside the increasingly difficult enemies that they face. While Strategems compose a powerful force with which Helldivers can thwart the enemy hoards, they also exist at the heart of many of Helldivers 2 most memorable, and comedic, moments, thanks to another unique feature that differentiates the title from its live-service contemporaries.

Helldivers 2 features a hilariously unforgiving friendly-fire mechanic, which sees Helldivers frequently killing their teammates, an occurrence that elicits just as many laughs as it does screams of frustration. In the heat of battle, every member of a squad can be found fighting for their lives, and often this indiscriminate barrage of bullets will find its way to fellow Helldivers, resulting in their untimely death. Compounding this wanton murder of one's squadmates is the often reckless implementation of turret and Orbital strike Strategems, which can turn even the simplest combat scenario into a deadly mission-ending free-for-all. While this feature would wreak havoc if implemented in the majority of gaming's online shooters, it feels right at home with the tone and tenacity of Helldivers 2.

Adding to the chaotic hilarity of these moments is Helldivers 2's revive mechanic. When a fellow Helldiver falls in battle, squadmates must summon reinforcement through a unique strategem sequence. While this is easy enough in moments of peace, the reality often sees players sprinting around countless enemies while rapidly entering the strategem sequence, before randomly chucking a beacon on which their fallen teammate descends from the heavens. The chaotic cycle of accidental friendly fire deaths and reinforcement Strategems seems like something that would quickly wear out its welcome. However, Helldivers 2 manages to make every mission and enemy encounter minutely enjoyable, thanks to its highly exaggerated voice acting, ragdoll physics, and an endless supply of gore.

While Helldivers 2 stands as a monumentally enjoyable live-service title, its first week was not without issues. The title launched on PC with broken matchmaking, frequent crashes, and reward-tracking issues, and, while markedly less intense, the PS5 version suffered from similar issues. However, Arrowhead Game Studios has since rolled out a series of patches, fixing many, if not all, of players' initial concerns. While live-service titles often struggle to get off the ground, Helldivers 2 stands as the rare example where the game was able to course-correct before the community’s favor wore thin.

Helldivers 2 is an exceptional cooperative experience, featuring a tight gameplay loop that is easy to pick up, and extremely difficult to put down. While its launch was plagued with issues, the title ends its first week as one of modern gaming's best multiplayer experiences. From the moment the opening cutscene rolls, players are engrossed in a hyper-militarized world that is just as rewarding as it is deadly. Whether players achieve a glorious victory or fail miserably, Helldivers 2 finds ways to make every mission truly memorable, by injecting its vast battlegrounds with a dark sense of humor, gratuitous gore, and uncapped replayability. After just one week, the title has proven itself a must-play experience on both the PC and PS5. With the majority of its universe still waiting to be explored, and the foundations of its story beginning to take shape, Helldivers 2 is sure to be an experience that keeps fans coming back for more.

Helldivers 2 is available now on PC and PS5. Game Rant was provided a PS5 code for this review.