Happy Birthday And Happy Valentine's, Helldivers 2, My First Live-Service Love

On February 8, 2024, launched to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:good reviews and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:even better sales. It was such an unexpectedly big hit that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the servers couldn’t handle it. It topped out at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:nearly h♏alf a million concurren൲t players. I started playing it in March, very soon after launch, and I haven’t been the😼 same since.

There’s Plenty To Love About Helldivers 2

This is a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:video game anniversary article, yes, but it’s also a Valentine’s Day article, because 'tis the season and all that. I don🌠’t love the overpriced chocolates a🦩nd flowers of the holiday, but Valentine’s Day has always been a good excuse for me to profess my love for all the many things in this world that bring me happiness. I may be a hater, but I’m also a lover.

This year, I’m thinking about Helldivers 2, 🍌the first live-servꦺice game that made me excited to play. You never forget your first, or so they say.

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This is a game I haven’t booted up in a long time. Like many first loves, I ended up outgrowing it and moving on with my life, but I still think of it fondly. There was nothing that wrong with it, really, we just ended up being incompatible. I wanted more from it than it could give me. Its overarching story 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:had slowed to a standstill, and I didn’t want to wait around on the off chance that things would change. 16𓂃8澳洲幸运5开奖网:I kept giving it chances to win me back, but it wasted them all until I was no longer willing to stick around. Too litt𒊎le too late, I guess.

Also like many first loves, it glowed🙈 up after I ended things with it (60-day patch program, Illuminates finally coming).

Still, there were many things I loved about it – things I still love, really. Its story 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:caught my interest from the jump, with its brazen space-based satire of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:militarism and colonialism. It 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:does🌊n’t gouge players for cash or prey on FOMO, unlike so many other games in the space. I loved its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:emphasis on cooperation over competition and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网🎉:the won꧙derful community that formed as a result, how it 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:always managed to surprise me, even the way it drove me to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:nihilistic meltdowns.

I found strange, perverse pleasure in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:dying in absurd ways💞 on the battlefield, getting ꩲflung across the map by massive explosions and melted in jets of bug bile. It was an endless source of joy, until it wasn’t.

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Lots Of People Still Love It, Even If I Don’t

Even if I’ve fallen off, plenty of people haven’t. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Loads of people returned to the game ꦏin December after the Illuminate finally attacked, and it’s received 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:plenty of ongoing support for its healthy player base – it has a 24 hour pe🉐ak💝 of close to 100k at the time I’m writing this.

And I’m happy for those people who are still enjoying their time with the game. Out of all the extractive live-service games in the world, with their long, grindy battle passes, their loot boxes, and their absolute shamelessness in turning their games into second jobs, Helldivers 2 is a gem in a pile of Terminid dung. It actually respects players, as long as you overlook 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the whole PSN thing, which was eventually smoothed over anyway.

So happy birthday, Helldivers 2, and here’s to (hopefully) many more. And happy Valentine’s Day, too – thanks for showing me that we can expect better from our live-service gam🌠es, even if we don’t end up sticking with them for life.