REACTION - Escalation of Freedom is a shot in the arm for Helldivers 2
Perfect for democracy.
By Jonathan Garrett
24/07/24
Those first few weeks after Helldivers 2 served up a veritable platter of democracy were blessed with unexpected updates and narrative events. Although things have slowed a little, there has been a fairly steady stream of content (both free and premium) to keep fellow bug squashers satiated until a more meaningful expansion is introduced.
Enter Escalation of Freedom, which is due to drop on August 6th. A Level 10 difficulty (the very thought of this gives me actual palpatations) new enemy types (Tentacles! Mortal tanks!), and some fresh objectives / biomes is just the shot of democracy needed to keep the freedom train moving forward. Too much? Well, it’s only because I’m such a patriot of Super Earth.
For a budget priced title from a moderately sized developer, Helldivers 2 is the blueprint for how multiplayer games should be designed, released, and supported. It doesn’t always have to be free to play with a weekly grind. It doesn’t have to rely on microtransactions to fund further development. Arrowhead have proven that great mechanics, an entertaining premise, and meaningful additions is the winning approach.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
