Helldivers 2's armoured bugs and terrifying tanks can crush you flat, but that's why I love them so

GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Helldivers 2’s armoured bugs and terrifying tanks can crush you flat, but that’s why I love them soWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Helldivers 2 best weapons - Soldier with a rocket launcher

Helldivers 2 has been out for just over a month now, and the conversations aroundthe metahave lingered mostly on one particular issue: gee, those tanky enemies sure are a pain in the butt.

In case you haven’t been fighting for Super Earth, let me explain. Enemy armour in Helldivers 2 doesn’t just reduce damage, it entirely nullifies it—if you’re using the wrong gun, that is. Bullets will ricochet off your foes, laser cannons will spark gloriously against sheet metal and chitin, and you’ll get a handy little reticle marker to let you know just how screwed you are.

Plink, plink

(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Helldivers 2 warbond

Darktide—and Vermintide 2, to an extent—both make use of heavy armour. Often, enemies will waltz up with riot shields and suits, but their weak spots are typically something you canaimat. You also tend to have a good tools to deal with them baseline, it’s just about execution.

Conversely, Left 4 Dead’s biggest, baddest threat—the Tank—is beefy and intimidating enough that its iconic theme is stamped into my brain. But it’s still just a sack of hitpoints. You have to use an awful lot of gun to bring the bugger down, but at least you know that every shot you take has an impact.

Fighting a Left 4 Dead Tank or one of Darktide’s boss enemies is a scary, tense affair—but you’re usually only overwhelmed if your moment-to-moment decisions are bad. In Helldivers 2, however, you only really lose fights with tanks if you’reunderprepared.

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It owes this, in part, to the fact that it’s also an arcadey take on the military sim, where preparation and squad tactics are a requirement. Still—not having the right weapon on you, the correct loadout selected, or a spare stratagem to-hand decisions you make quite a few minutes before that bile spewer melts your face off.

If a player can trace their steps back to a choice they made and say ‘yes, this is my fault’ while their bones turn to steaming goop, I think this design choice rules. But in making that choice, Arrowhead’s riding a very narrow line between fun and frustration.

One tank, ah ah ah! Two tanks, ah ah ah!

(Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

A horde of automaton bots from Helldivers 2 marchers mercilessly on.

The beefcakes of Helldivers 2 do not care for setpieces. In other horde shooters, boss enemies will usually clear the room over the course of the encounter—either due to AI director wizardry or because they wind up swatting their own guys.

This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, of course. But even if you’re swarmed, you can usually use corridors, high ground, and smart play to corral them into a more manageable area. Not to mention, the smaller guys are easier to mow down and less spread out.

In contrast, Helldivers 2 isn’t afraid to surround and overwhelm you. Its hulks, tanks, bile titans and chargers don’t announce themselves with their own theme music—they just show up, often with back-up and sometimes in batches. The amount of times I’ve said “oh come on, another one?” Too many times.

The mad scramble to pull something FUBAR under control is awesome when you actually have ways to do that. I think, however, that it’s very telling how most player complaints after thefall of the Railgunfollowed the tune of ‘can an Arrowhead Dev tell me what I was supposed to do here?’

That question was often accompanied with a screenshot of five bile titans, crowded around a corpse like a flock of seagulls tearing into a dropped portion of chips.

(Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

A giant bile titan, a towering insect from Helldivers 2, lets out a vicious scream as it stomps over the landscape.

At risk of repeating myself—Helldivers 2’s way of doing things only really works if, the majority of the time, it’s the player’s fault they’re up bug creek without an orbital paddle.

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Plink, plink#

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One tank, ah ah ah! Two tanks, ah ah ah!#

Plink, plink

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

One tank, ah ah ah! Two tanks, ah ah ah!