Helldivers 2 was one of my most-played games in 2024, and a big part of the appeal is the serious stakes of defending the noble human bastion of Super Earth, mixed with the goofy tone of gaslighting from high command and antics on the battlefield. The game’s core concepts are widely appealing, taking large doses of inspiration from Starship Troopers, The Terminator, War of the Worlds, and other sci-fi classics. It’s not a surprise that the game is being developed into a feature film; out of all of the games in Sony’s library, Helldivers 2 seems most naturally suited for a big-screen adaptation. But there’s one critical element the movie needs to keep if it’s going to live up to the game: the in-game antics.
If you haven’t played Helldivers 2 or watched much footage of the game, you could easily think it’s an undiluted power fantasy. The Helldivers are the most potent of Super Earth’s forces, and they serve as a vanguard against the insectoid Terminids, the robot armies of the Automatons, and the psychic Illuminate. Super Earth soldiers fight for liberty, “managed democracy,” and freedom — in theory. In practice, Super Earth leadership seems to be serving up a load of bull. High command regularly gaslights us, feeding us a steady stream of propaganda aboard our ships. And we sure do find a lot of dead colonists on each world we visit.
Despite the ferocity of our enemies, players regularly take down enemies 10 times their size, tear apart tanks, and topple the War of the Worlds-style walkers that shoot lethal lasers out of their one eye. Helldivers are cool as hell. Helldivers’ lives are also highly disposable, despite all the pomp around the title. It’s probably not a coincidence that the drop pods we use to go from the Super Earth ship in orbit to the planet’s surface look like bullets. Since our tools can’t differentiate between friend and foe, there are many friendly fire incidents. Super Earth treats these as mere unavoidable wrinkles in combat, a minor complication to be instantly forgotten in the pursuit of more liberty.
After spending a year playing this game, I’m pretty confident that our leadership’s assessment is not true, by the way. I can assure you that many of my deaths were completely avoidable, and at least a few were intentionally caused by my terrible friends.
There’s a Looney Tunes-like energy to Helldivers 2 that really creates memories. For instance, I can tell you that I have cried out “Oh no! My torso!” at least a dozen times as my shredded Helldiver is flung across the screen due to being caught in a buddy’s orbital strike. The last time I played with my husband, he dropped his pod directly on me, stepping out triumphantly and claiming my special weapon from my crushed body with no hesitation. I have died countless times from mines, placed both by Automatons and by my own pals. Perhaps most insultingly, one time I called down a massive exosuit for my friend to pilot, only for him to turn and immediately squish me under the mech’s big metal feet.
I have to admit, my hands aren’t entirely clean either. There have been a few times I’ve sniped a friend with my rifle that shoots grenades from afar, turning him into salsa with a single exploding shot.
This isn’t even getting into all of the comical deaths I’ve suffered at the hands (or mandibles, I guess) of Super Earth’s enemies. My friends and I have occasionally cackled with laughter when we’ve seen a Charger slam into one of our friends and send them flying off into the sunset, or cheered at someone holding off a swarm of zombified humans known as Voteless with a stun lance, a shield, and a dream.
While it’s nice to share these moments with friends in voice chat, this is all part of the Helldiving experience. If you look the game up on social media, you’ll find tons of ridiculous clips of players being mulched, flung, squashed, drowned, or exploded by various friendly fire incidents. This is part of the engine Arrowhead is using; it can’t turn the friendly fire off. Every mission, despite the patriotic messaging, is built on the bones of hundreds of hapless Helldivers.
If you want military precision and great survival rates, there are other games — Helldivers 2 is where you go if you want to see a guy get licked by a giant bug so hard they fall into barbed plants and die.
Arrowhead will be involved in the production, but this early on, it’s impossible to tell what that influence might look like.
It’s hard to imagine how this kind of slapstick tone can be brought into a big-budget movie. Blockbusters generally have a consistent cast of characters, so it’s hard to imagine A-list actors showing up for just a few minutes before getting absolutely obliterated by an Automaton Hulk. On the other hand, these kinds of antics are core to the spirit of Helldiving — otherwise, you might as well call them Heckdivers.
Sure, the Automatons and Illuminate draw from serious media like the Terminator movies and War of the Worlds. But seeing those franchises’ serious, grim tone on the big screen as part of the movie would be a huge shock to fans of the game, and wouldn’t serve its themes or the play experience. When it comes to Helldivers 2, the sillier, the better.
