Join your host Garhdo as they take a look at Helldivers, explaining in less than 10 minutes exactly what Helldivers is, some of the most interesting things about it, everything you need to know to understand it, and advice on where to start!

April 17th 2026

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The idea behind my Fandom Primers was one that I had had for a while, inspired by an old YouTube series I loved called Geek Crash Course, with the idea of providing new fans with everything they needed to know to enjoy a new fandom in ten minutes or less. I had tested the format with several close friends before going all in, but I decided to make Helldivers, a game I was really enjoying, the first released episode.

Transcript

Hello my friends, Welcome to Garhdo Goes Geek for this Fandom Primer. Today we are learning about Helldivers.

Helldivers is a series of video games developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. While the first game was successful in its own right and is still available to purchase on Steam and Playstation 4, it is the 2024 sequel Helldivers II and its ongoing growth and success over the past couple of years that has grown this fandom, and propelled the series through memes, clips and video content into its current stance in pop-culture, helped in large part by the ongoing and evolving nature of the game’s lore and story.

Helldivers II is essentially a third-person shooter, where the players, as special operatives known as Helldivers, the frontline troops of the organised state of Super-Earth, a world government run by a process called managed democracy, where democracy and liberty are worshipped and upheld with zeal, drop onto a planet via a projectile known as a hellpod, either alone or in groups of up to four, to perform operations against one of the three main enemy factions of the game, the Terminid Bugs, the Automaton and Cyborg hordes, or the alien Illuminate, referred to as squids by the Helldivers.

The operations that can be performed on the planet are varied, from raising the flag of Super-Earth, to more dangerous missions such as destroying enemy infrastructure, collecting vital resources held in enemy territory, evacuating colonists, and helping to launch ICBMs to contribute to the planetary war-effort. And there is not just a single planet that players can conduct these operations on.

The backdrop of lore for Helldivers II is a Galactic War, the second one in fact, set 250 odd years in our future, and this war has been raging since the game’s launch, with every action of every player in every operation being recorded, from deaths, to kill counts, to success rates, to even how many bullets they have fired – all of this contributes to the games narrative, which is delivered to the playerbase using Major Orders. These are community objectives set for the players, such as to hold certain planets, or kill a set amount of enemies, and these can be completed successfully or failed, and the results of this contributes to the story, with Arrowhead maintaining an in-house gamesmaster to co-ordinate the story and missions.

Planets are procedurally generated, with a selection of available biomes from desert and frozen wastes, to jungles and lava planets, to mountains to blasted rock, with weather effects and their own day and night cycles. Planets can be invaded by the enemies, and occupied worlds have to be freed by the actions of the Helldivers, with every mission on a planet contributing to its liberation campaign, with bonuses for the completion of side-objectives and city liberation. Each player can deploy where they want to, and they can also vote to move the Democracy Space Station, a powerful support system that can provide bonuses to the helldivers on the planet that it is deployed to.

Despite an adherence to its system of managed democracy, which essentially votes on behalf of the citizens, Super-Earth itself is an imperialist state, where the people celebrate their liberty, but in fact they are subject to the whims of the central state, with dissidence and protest severely punished with re-education, imprisonment or execution. The Swedish developers behind the game seem to have taken the inspiration of the jingoistic post-911 United States and the satire on fascism of the Starship Troopers film as a basis to create Super-Earth, and I think most players realise that we are playing as the bad guys.

The three enemy groups are spread to different areas of the galaxy map, and fight Super-Earth as a result of its aggression towards them. The East of the map is where the terminids have taken root. The bodies of these bugs rots into fuel which is used by the starships of Super-Earth, and so after the first war, which took place in the first game, they were farmed for this fuel. However they have escaped captivity, developed many aggressive strains and variants to oppose the Helldivers, and spread by using spores to create an impenetrable cloud called the Gloom, which surrounds their core hive worlds, one of which, Oshaune, was recently retaken by the Helldivers.

To the West is the armies of the Automatons. In the first game an army of cyborgs who attempted to break away from Super-Earth’s control on the planet of Cyberstan. Once conquered they were put into slavery, but they have now evolved into the Automatons, who are seeking to carve out their own space and to be left alone, however the Helldivers are not allowing this, leading to several devastating battles on Malevalon Creek, and now the Helldivers are pushing towards Cyberstan again, aiming to destroy the planet completely.

To the South the Illuminate have returned. After they were fought off in the first war they left the galaxy, however when the former farm turned Terminid supercolony of Merida was turned into a black hole by Super-Earth to stop it, the Illuminate somehow influenced it, bringing it closer to Super-Earth to destroy several other planets, and even launching their own assault on Super-Earth itself via the wormhole, destroying several of the planets major cities in the process. They were eventually driven from Super-Earth, but their influence is wide, with their attacks focused around cities and colony worlds as they turn citizens into the zombie-like Voteless. They are still the newest faction in the game and not quite as developed as the others, but they are challenging to fight and it seems that plans are in the pipeline to continue developing them.

Now if you wanted to get into Helldivers it is very easy and very affordable, as Helldivers II is incredibly well-priced for the amount of content in it. It does require an online connection due to the Galactic War mechanic, however you can play missions solo, and while there are microtransactions to gain currency to purchase Warbonds, essentially a battle pass of sorts containing new equipment and weapon stratagems that you can use, all of the Warbonds ever released are still available, there is a large one for free to expand your starting arsenal, and the currency can be earned in game simply by exploring maps, and it is very easy to farm enough for a warbond within a couple of days on lower difficulties should you wish to.

From a gameplay perspective as a shooter the weapons and stratagems are for the most part incredibly satisfying to use, providing great audio and visual feedback to the player that highlights the cinematic destruction you are unleashing against your enemies, and the community is generally a very positive and welcoming one, with high-level players being very supportive to lower-level ones. Also considering the game is published by Sony it is also available on Xbox Series, and there are rumours it may also come to Nintendo Switch 2, as well as being available on PC and Playstation 5. That said the first game is also still available, and can be played completely offline, however the gameplay in that is a top-down shooter, and the majority of what I have described here relates more to the second game, as the first game tells the story of the first galactic war. That said the main factions are all still present, and the Helldivers universe is still a fun one to engage in.

Hopefully by now you have all you need to start exploring this fandom. If you enjoyed this please like and share it with your friends. I also have other content available in my attached Linktree. Please take care of yourselves and look after your health as best as you can. Until next time my friends.