I can't argue that's it's not popular. I just can't imagine why. Watching gameplay footage it looks like any of dozens of similar games. TPS, swarming mobs, orbital strike, woohoo. Would someone tell what this has that makes it so appealing?
There's a fantastic story, with simple game mechanics and nearly zero immersion breaking elements.
You can load up and completely leave the real world behind, there's nothing that drags you back to it. Ie not a single symbol of today's 2024 earth; we are fully and truly fighting for Super Earth some time in the future.
Also, physics and realism is absolutely brutal. On the higher difficulty levels, your team surviving until the end feels like a real achievement.
The lore of the game is just amazing, and is lifted by epic music and voice acting, plus stellar graphics.
Plus, general execution is top notch and the game is very well optimized; I was getting solid framerates with an i7-4790 and a 1080
That said I did see some weird framerates on my AMD system... standing on the bridge of your ship overlooking the planet tanked the framerate hard. It has a 2070 Super and a ryzen 5 3600. But that system is in the living room and used like a game console, and I find Helldivers pretty unplayable with a controller, so I dont use it much
In the end you could ask same thing about any art. Music is just same notes arranged differently, sometimes with voice lines over it, instruments are mostly same. Movies, pretty much same plot points and similar characters. Same goes for TV shows and books... And all of them are popular.
But they're more about survival, HD2 is about pewpew for the democracy =)
Thanks for the tips on the others.
Lots of other games it feels like you are playing a game, there are parts where you like "yah this is like this because game mechanics" that break immersion a lot.
Almost nothing in Helldivers 2 breaks your immersion.
Yea, the basic enemies on the easiest difficulty levels can just be shot with maximum pew pew. Then you encounter the bug that has a bullet proof headplate and it sticks it down to the ground like a shield when you start shooting - and your bullets will ricochet from it, possibly hitting your teammates if you just go hog wild on it.
Then there are the bigger enemies that have specific weak points - usually on their backs and sides, where you can't shoot but your teammates can when it focuses on you.
And the automatons shoot back, pretty accurately from far away.
The difficulty is pretty dynamic too, there are rules on how it works, but you very rarely get a break in the fighting and on higher difficulties running away is an important skill - you don't get points for shooting every enemy on the map, you just waste limited ammunition.
And then there is the plot with an actual human GM deciding what happens instead of some algorithm combined with nice immersion and a bonkers Starship Troopers-esque (the movie not the book) world.