Helldivers 2 is not the game it used to be.

There was a time where the players and the developers used to like each other. After months (around a year now?) the developers have been ignoring player feedback whether it be for balance or fixes, either dodge the answer or lie to us about changes that get made in the game, and have been pushing for monetizable content over real gameplay, and completely leaving over 45% of the player base in the dark for 'endgame content', instead prioritising the monetizable content.

To start, I'll lay down the craziest fact. There are countless bugs in this game that have existed for years. Some of them date to the launch of the game. And yes, the developers are fixing them, but only for them to get broken again literally 1 month later. A guided missile launcher was unable to lock properly for around 7 months, it got fixed and was working fine, just to stop working again after a few months. Your player character getting rag-dolled was in a frustrating and annoying state for 8 months, got fixed, broken again 1 month later. Game audio has been working inconsistently for the past 8 months. The fix? "Just go into your game files and increase the RAM bro" is the official developer response, and an official fix has not been heard about. On the topic of game performance, the only real optimisation efforts were made earlier this year and parts of late 2025, and has been abandoned since. The game runs over 65% worse than it did on launch. Hardlocking issues, where your pc completely shuts off due to reasons related to the gameguard or actual helldivers game (I'm unsure about the real cause), continue to plague people in the community, with my own friend's pc shutting down twice in 1 game about a week ago, as if running minimum settings 720p with a pc well in the reccomended specs list isn't enough. All of these issues mentioned have not been acknowledged since they were initially fixed.

Not only that, but the developers are increasingly deceptive as time goes by. We have been told on multiple occasions that they are "listening to community feedback" and willing to work with us. Very few changes are made in regards to feedback, with even less effort put into fixing bugs. Why? Because fixing bugs doesn't bring in money for Arrowhead, and Balance isn't done based on community feedback; the CEO of arrowhead has openly stated that they balance based on pickrates, not on what 'influencers' say. Not only is that ignoring the feedback they're asking for, but these so called 'influencers' spend days with their communities on stream building balance and glitch feedback forms to try and perfect what the right moves are to do, but its almost like they just get sent straight into the paper shredder, just like the rest of the forms sent in. Next, the devs dodge the balancing decisions they announce and sometimes straight up lie about changes they make. The most well known example is the changes on a popular gun, the 'Coyote', they openly stated they didn't touch the Coyote. What actually happened? They changed it so its harder to light things on fire with it, which is literally its entire niche. That change also affects a few other guns in the game, but they aren't mentioned at all.

Next, we get free major updates around every 4-6 months. Thats fine. But what isn't fine is the paid/"grindable" content that releases monthly, which technically is free but requires multiple in game hours on a mind-numbingly boring difficulty to just unlock a single warbond. This used to take around 50-80 minutes, after it got changed it now takes 3-4 hours, if not more. For a company that was previously seen as "fine to support and spend $10 for" it doesn't take a genius to figure out how greedy Arrowhead has become over time. Not only that, but good balance changes and relevant bugs are only fixed when its time to release paid content for. For example; 2 months ago we got a warbond with a backpack flamethrower; in the trailer it looks awful, and the community backlash was significant enough to make arrowhead make it increadibly strong so the warbond would make sales. Around 2 weeks ago, we got a warbond with mechs. Not only should mechs have been added through the game via major orders to give players something to rally and fight for, it was locked behind a paywall/grindwall. The average player will have to pull out their credit card or spend a week grinding a boring difficulty just to try the new fun gear, which in previous years we unlocked through the games major order system, which was both more fun and also brought more reason to play the game. Not only that, but before the mech warbond was introduced, mechs really sucked. They felt like they were paper thin for a description that claimed they were "heavily armoured" (which they infact have medium armour where enemies of similar sizes have heavy armour) and were able to be killed in 1-3 shots with medium sized weaponry. After the warbond, they were changed to be much tankier and feel a lot better, which is now clear to the players that they will only make reasonable and good balance changes when it will help the devs make money. For a game that only uses "good FOMO" (an impossible concept) this is just unacceptable.

To end off with, if we put aside warbonds, there is 0 endgame content. For the average player, you will unlock every free stratagem in the game at around level 25-30. You will unlock every upgrade for your ship at around level 80-90. And your favourite weapons will be fully customised by the time you finish your ship upgrades as well. How many players are above level 90, according to internal statistics? 49.3%. 49.3% of players are being cut off by the devs because making profitable "progression" is a higher priority than keeping the active player counts up and giving players a reason to play the game. For some, progression isn't needed to play the game, but for the majority of casual players, the major order system isn't enough to keep them coming back. On the topic of the storyline, it used to be far more meaningful. We would get a new stratagem to unlock if we liberated a certain planet, we had the choice between unlocking antitank minefields or saving some sick kids (we saved the kids) and we've stopped aliens from destroying our homeplanet by coming through a wormhole that was rapidly approaching. That meant something. Now, the major orders that mean something are rushed through and poorly planned, with the recent cyberstan invasion, the final push for the capital was on a Thursday. A huge portion of players who are only able to play on weekends completely missed one of the most exciting ingame events that had happened for months just because the devs were half rushing the invasion and didn't think it through. The excuse? "Good FOMO". In addition, we got a tank a few days prior to the invasion, but we just 'got it'. We didn't have to go rush to liberate a planet for tank parts, or defend a new factory from an invasion, we just got it. Huge missed opportunity to rally the community and give players a reason to log on for the first new free stratagem in over a year. But because the devs were rushing out the cyberstan invasion event, we were just given it and that was that. Its very clear that because the tank wasn't going to make the devs revenue, it wasn't given enough thought to be released properly, just like the Cyberstan event.

Overall, I love this game, and I wish I could recommend it and tell people to buy it. But with the current direction its going in, I really just can't do that. If you're looking for a squad hoard shooter experience, I hear Far Far West is doing Far Far Better right now. If you have a choice between the two games, I will say please consider that one more than Helldivers 2.