I can't argue that's it's not popular. I just can't imagine why. Watching gameplay footage it looks like any of dozens of similar games. TPS, swarming mobs, orbital strike, woohoo. Would someone tell what this has that makes it so appealing?
First of all, it's incredibly fun to play with friends.
There's a fantastic story, with simple game mechanics and nearly zero immersion breaking elements.
You can load up and completely leave the real world behind, there's nothing that drags you back to it. Ie not a single symbol of today's 2024 earth; we are fully and truly fighting for Super Earth some time in the future.
Also, physics and realism is absolutely brutal. On the higher difficulty levels, your team surviving until the end feels like a real achievement.
The lore of the game is just amazing, and is lifted by epic music and voice acting, plus stellar graphics.
The orbital strikes are effectively unlimited in most cases. I like that this game isn't afraid to give you powerful toys. The devs balance the game around your weapons, not the other way around.
Plus, general execution is top notch and the game is very well optimized; I was getting solid framerates with an i7-4790 and a 1080
I would consider 45 fps "solid" for my needs. I rarely saw it dip below 30 for me
That said I did see some weird framerates on my AMD system... standing on the bridge of your ship overlooking the planet tanked the framerate hard. It has a 2070 Super and a ryzen 5 3600. But that system is in the living room and used like a game console, and I find Helldivers pretty unplayable with a controller, so I dont use it much
Gamers really don't ask much. If those things make up fun playable game it is enough to be popular. I have understood it might be formulaic, but it is well executed.
In the end you could ask same thing about any art. Music is just same notes arranged differently, sometimes with voice lines over it, instruments are mostly same. Movies, pretty much same plot points and similar characters. Same goes for TV shows and books... And all of them are popular.
You have to try it to get it. They've really tuned the gameplay and the four player co op adds a huge amount of depth. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of PVE co op games like this.
I love this genre, and Deep Rock Galactic and Alien Swarm are the only ones that are on the same level. Alien Swarm is even more tactic and punishing (no reviving at all). Full Metal Furies is also very good, but not as similar to the other three.
I've put more hours into Helldivers 1 than any other game I've ever played. Unfortunately I don't currently have a machine capable of playing HD2 but it's the kind of game I would consider buying a proper gaming laptop just to play.
Lots of other games it feels like you are playing a game, there are parts where you like "yah this is like this because game mechanics" that break immersion a lot.
Almost nothing in Helldivers 2 breaks your immersion.
Felt boring to me too. The core mechanic was just shoot everything everywhere with little discrimination and everything felt kinda same. Fun for 5 minutes. It also doesn't help that there's always some annoying racist on voice chat games when you have an accent so that takes out all the joy of co-op unless you have a premade group. Doom Eternal is arguably similar but it has enough variation and finetuning in levels, mobility, powerups, weapons, enemy types, soundtrack to make it very fun.
There's a ton of discrimination in where you shoot and with what.
Yea, the basic enemies on the easiest difficulty levels can just be shot with maximum pew pew. Then you encounter the bug that has a bullet proof headplate and it sticks it down to the ground like a shield when you start shooting - and your bullets will ricochet from it, possibly hitting your teammates if you just go hog wild on it.
Then there are the bigger enemies that have specific weak points - usually on their backs and sides, where you can't shoot but your teammates can when it focuses on you.
And the automatons shoot back, pretty accurately from far away.
The difficulty is pretty dynamic too, there are rules on how it works, but you very rarely get a break in the fighting and on higher difficulties running away is an important skill - you don't get points for shooting every enemy on the map, you just waste limited ammunition.
And then there is the plot with an actual human GM deciding what happens instead of some algorithm combined with nice immersion and a bonkers Starship Troopers-esque (the movie not the book) world.
