Another lesson Fatshark could learn from Arrowhead:
Fatshark in 2022: “Solo Mode will be available on launch or shortly thereafter in a patch in December”
Fatshark in 2025: “Hmmm? What? I didn’t say anything about Solo Mode! Who’s asking!? Are you a cop!?”
It’s all a question of volume.
If it’s just a few people complaining, they won’t care.
If it’s 95% of the currently active userbase or you get a quarter million negative reviews in a singular day, that’s different.
This. The two games scratch some different itches. You’re not doing much swordplay in Helldivers (though the option exists), and you’re not drawing a patrol into an ambush of multiple pre-prepared gunturrets across minefield in Darktide.
Darktide is a magnificently crafted close quarters twitchfest and a well crafted e-warhammerland to visually feast upon. HD2 has a coherent continuing story with genuinely new challenges every few weeks with a gameplay style more suited to exploration and map interaction across large outside battlefields, being more friendly to solo play. The teamplay elements in each game are a bit different, in DT it’s very much about sticking together through the ride, microtiming and combos and tactical placement, in HD2 teamplay is far more about coordinating across the map and use of long-cooldown assets and time management.
For those thinking HD2 is boring or isn’t difficult, did you play with the recent Illuminate Leviathan? Or Super Helldive with Predator Strain? I’m not the type that can invest 4 digits worth of hours into single titles, but I’ve got 240 in Helldivers, all the ship upgrades/strategems/etc and almost all the Warbonds, and can always find a difficulty level that kicks my ass.
It has its place on the market for those crowds who are simply after a horde based coop SHOOTER, but absolutely, I got bored of the game after less than 50 hours.
I never really paid attention to Hell Divers 2 due to the Sony fiasco, and learning that even after they ‘pulled back’ they still nuked the games play/buy-ability in the countries that bought it ‘coincidentally in every country where PSN wasn’t available’. Made me feel the community was ‘celebrating to early’ a win that didn’t happen/the corporate side just swept under the rug and got away with, so made me never really feel like any of the ‘good will’ everyone was touting was genuine.
But hearing that recently that BS was resolved, and now they released this cap, showcasing that they realized when the true bench mark was (even when their community didn’t) and NOW are showing that the battle was actually won? (for now at least).
Yeah, I think I need to look into this game properly now XD. Even if it unfortunately won’t scratch the same itch the tide games do (given it’s basically just a for fun rag doll/power fantasy simulator with very little ‘tuned difficulty’ or stakes), it’ll be nice playing a game with a dev team that (currently) actually gives a dang XD and will even push back against their publishers to set things right. To rare a thing these days, to rare a thing.
Yes, one of them is competent and doesn’t scam their customers, the other is Fatshark
This is 100% true and incredibly sad to me. If the game had launched with current itemization (or none and just work on an unlock system like almost every other co op game), the auric board and skill trees it probably would’ve been a lot more popular.
That doesn’t stop me from thinking HD 2 is boring slop.
I’ll take 1000 out of memory errors before I disable mods!
Ditto! Mods are life.
Wdym? The enemies get nerfed all the time, lol.
/s ofc
I didn’t know how badly I wanted a 4-act system with in-mission weapon swapping like Left 4 Dead but with the Tide gameplay until now. Chaos Wastes in VT2 is similar, but not quite the same