Game Theory: Have you done your part for Super Earth today?
Helldivers 2 blends Starship Troopers-esque satirical propaganda with the sublime joys and panics of orbital bombardment
Games Features Arrowhead Game Studios
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off the weekend by taking a look at the world of gaming, diving in to the ideas that underpin the hobby we love with a bit of Game Theory. We’ll sound off in the space above, and invite you to respond down in the comments, telling us what you’re playing this weekend, and what theories it’s got you kicking around.
God, we hope whichever genius at Arrowhead Game Studios—creators of new PlayStation 5/Steam co-op sensation Helldivers 2, and its 2015 predecessor—came up with the words “Super Earth” got some kind of very shiny commendation for it. Alongside “Managed Democracy,” the game’s euphemism for the political, uh, “ideal” that the titular Helldivers fight and die and then die some more for, it’s a perfect encapsulation of our favorite of the hyper-violent new shooter’s numerous secret weapons: Its over-the-top, deliberately Starship Troopers-invoking tone. At some point in this universe, humanity decided calling their homeworld “Earth” wasn’t badass enough, so they fixed it by putting “Super” in the name, in a fit of fascist-leaning patriotic fervor. What’s not to love?
On a surface level, the plot of Helldivers 2 is completely disposable. The jackbooted thugs of Super Earth have gotten too big for their britches, picked simultaneous fights with the bugs from Troopers and the Terminators (or the Tyrannids and Nekron, if you’re grokking the game’s obvious Warhammer nods) and now you need to go get yourself repeatedly killed trying to salvage the situation while jingoistic propaganda plays. But the game’s relentless deployment of recruitment ads, patriotic barks, and never-ending salutes points to its incredible blending of tone and content: Of course these idiots are brainwashed to the gills; why else would they subject themselves to this madness?
The overconfident incompetence of fascism is in evidence everywhere in the play of Helldivers, from the liberal application of friendly fire, to the game’s deliberately arcane, cheat code-esque instructions for calling in things like airstrikes, or respawns for the teammate that you just blew up with an airstrike. Harkening back to a different tabletop touchstone, there’s something almost Paranoia-esque about imagining your heavily armed trooper fumbling through the manual, trying to remember the bureaucratic code to get a new sniper rifle while a hundred heavily armed killbots converge on their position. The spectacle of your constantly hoo-rah-ing squadmates running straight into the (sometimes literal) buzzsaws of their far more focused opponents is a punchline that never stops landing; the emotional curve of Helldivers 2 is one of supreme confidence almost instantly transforming to horrified panic as you realize you’ve gotten in over your head, and the tone is a vital complement to that experience.
And, at the same time, it also delivers some of the game’s biggest thrills. Helldivers 2 is a game that has no time for restraint, and there’s nothing quite like seeing an enemy position get completely annihilated because you and your fellow Space Cadets just rained seven kinds of orbital hell down on it, blowing apart buildings and bots alike with the power of planetary bombardment. The forces of Super Earth might be absolute shit at keeping their people alive, but they have the market cornered on blowing things up. (It’s not a coincidence that Arrowhead’s previous series was magic-mixing top-down shooter Magicka, games that were always happy to hand players a bunch of figurative bombs and let them blow the world, and themselves, to hell.) Why not toss that airstrike beacon a little too close to your buddies, ensuring that all the bugs get blowed up real good? We have reserves! Super Earth will overcome!
That’s the brilliance of the whole “Super Earth” thing—it’s a comedy idea, sure, and the game’s writings treats its deluded “heroes” as the fools they are. But when you’re playing the role of literal cannon fodder, being fed into the meat grinder, it’s hard not to catch a bit of that patriotic frenzy. It’s all the armor you’ve got, sometimes, when a gigantic, murderous bug is coming for your oh-so-fragile face.