The candle that burns twice as bright lives half as long.
There’s a lot of reasons Helldivers 2 has quickly become the new hotness—though part of its continued relevance, even months beyond launch, is the blistering pace of its updates. All the stealthily-added new enemy types and surprise stratagem drops have really made it feel like a game that delivers on the elusive live-service promise: an ever-changing story that lives and breathes as you play it.
Arrowhead’s been going so full-pelt, however, that signs of weariness are starting to show—both from its developers and its increasingly-rowdy players. As community manager Twinbeard recently noted, the entire dev team’s still been playing “catch-up”—meanwhile, CEO Johan Pilestedt has shared concerns over balance problems. Which raises the question: is Helldivers 2 burning too bright, too fast?
I do want to be clear, since I hate to get all doom and gloom about any game—I think Helldivers 2 has a promising future, one that’ll only get better as Arrowhead improves at maintaining it. I also think, however, that the good ship Arrowhead is slowly (but surely) headed for a massive game design iceberg, and something’s gotta give before it gets there.War! Bonds! What are they good for?
Warbonds, on paper, sound great. Monthly batches of weapons that never expire, and you can get ’em with $10 worth of earnable in-game premium currency? That’s a lot more appealing than cosmetic-only battle passes that disappear forever if you can’t complete them in time.
There’s some design fine-print here, though, which is already rearing its ugly head. As PC Gamer’s Morgan Park noted, the balance of new weapons doesn’t always miss its mark. The AR-61 Tenderizer was particularly vexing for him. Morgan wrote:
“So by my best estimation so far, the Tenderizer is a Liberator with five points less recoil, lighter magazines, and slightly better tracking… cool I guess? … It’s that lack of distinction that’s bothering me most.
