Video Game / Helldivers

Join the fight, spread democracy!

"Super Earth - Our home. Prosperity, liberty and democracy - Our way of life. But it doesn't come free: it is every man, woman and child's duty to protect our home, our culture, and our families. Why not make the most important decision of your life; make the safety of your family a personal responsibility, and prove that you have the strength and courage to be free? Join the HELLDIVERS! Travel the galaxy, visit the capitals, meet unusual people and represent the federation. Secure the resources we need to preserve our way of life and create a future for Super Earth. Spread managed democracy throughout the galaxy. Become more than you are. Become a Hero. Become... a Legend!"

—Broadcast Narrator, opening cinematic

Attention Citizens. Please observe the following PATRIOTIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: ^* Any deviation of attention or attempts to exit the page without fully reviewing the contents will be considered treason. Treason is punishable by death.

The following page and its contents have been decreed "MANDATORY" reading by the Ministry of Truth. Please read the page and listed trope examples in its entirety for the betterment of DEMOCRACY and LIBERTY! For the Glory of SUPER EARTH!

Helldivers is a top down shooter game developed by Arrowhead Game Studios, the creators of Magicka. In Helldivers, the players need to learn to coordinate their actions during chaotic combat game play, to succeed in combat and to avoid friendly fire casualties.

The dystopian universe of Helldivers has mankind ruled by a managed democracy where the outcome of elections are more predictable. The improved democracy has become more than a way of electing a government, it has become a creed which the brainwashed inhabitants fight for - without fully acknowledging what it means. In the year 2084, the capital of this new society, Super Earth, is beset on all sides by three hostile enemy races that, according to the government, need to be exterminated if humanity's "peaceful" democracy could ever hope to prosper.

The Helldivers, a galactic combat unit, must fight three different enemy species to ensure the survival of Super Earth. The gameplay takes place on one of several procedurally-generated open missions where players must accomplish a series of objectives. Before missions the players select from a wide variety of weapons, perks and stratagems to accomplish their objectives. The game's most unique feature is, much like Magicka, the fact that friendly fire cannot be turned off, meaning it's incredibly easy to die by your own teammate's hands if you fail to cooperate with them. The game also has a macrogame known as the "War Front", where all players cooperate to assist with the eradication of the three alien species, in doing so obtaining powerful bonuses and rewards. The game was released for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. A version for Microsoft Windows was released via Steam on December 7, 2015.

A sequel, Helldivers II, which shifts the perspective from top-down to over-the-shoulder, was announced at Sony's "PlayStation Presents" showcase on May 26, 2023, and released in February 2024.

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Our utopian nation at Super Earth provides samples of:^note Reading all these tropes is mandatory. Failure to do so will be considered treason. Treason is punishable by death.

• Achievement System: Both the Steam and Playstation versions have achievements. These include basic progression, such as completing a mission, reaching levels, as well as ones for things such as having your 4-man team in a vehicle at the same time on a Friday.
• Alcubierre Drive: According to the player’s ship announcement system, all space vessels utilize this as their method of FTL travel.
• Ammunition Backpack: The RL-112 Recoilless Rifle and the MLS-4X 'Commando' are shoulder fired launchers that come with an ammunition backpack that is required to reload them, which takes a while... unless the backpack is carried by somebody other than the shooter, who can reload the weapon much faster than the user would. The sequel expands this with the Autocannon and Spear Anti-Tank Missile Launcher.
  • Honorable mention to the Resupply Pack, which is a backpack holding ammunition for use by the wearer's teammates. In II, it's up to the user to give out the charges instead (and they can use them themselves).
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: When your Helldiver reaches certain levels, they are rewarded with different outfits, including, helmets and capes. You can also earn three different specialty capes, one for each opposing race by completing a level 12 (Helldive) planet. Outfits are no longer directly rewarded from levels in the sequel though.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Should the last player alive die before they can throw their reinforcement stratagem, it will still activate and allow all of the dead players (including the one who was about to throw the beacon) to come back. Only counts if the last player has the reinforcement stratagem beacon in their hand when they die, though.
  • If you're crazy/stupid enough to try and complete a Retaliation mission all by yourself^note Don't do this. Seriously. It will not end well, each time you die will be accompanied by a Shredder missile launching at your position to kill all the enemies in the area and give you a second to recuperate as you respawn.
• Armor Is Useless: Your armour/helmet choices are purely cosmetic; only by taking the Heavy Armour perk do you actually get increased survivability.
• Ascended Meme: Penny Arcade had a comic about the extraction shuttle pilot, which they named "Frank", and his complete indifference about crushing Helldivers with his ship. In the next update, Arrowhead added an achievement "Make Frank Crush a Tank", which was earned by having the extraction shuttle land on top of a Bug tank. Sadly no longer possible in the sequel; the dropship will lift up again if something too large/durable would block its landing.
• A-Team Firing: Shooting your weapon without holding the Aim button will cause the bullets to spray all over the place and likely completely miss the intented target unless it's a large group. Try not to do this, as every bullet counts.
• Attack Its Weakpoint: In general, shooting enemies in the rear/backside will deal more damage due to the weaker armor rating.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Some of the stratagems, while looking great on paper, don't actually work all that well in practice.
  • The Tesla Tower appears to be a neat area denial asset and can kill most enemies that get near it rather quickly. However, its main issue that it's very difficult to tell what exactly its effective range is, meaning that it's just as likely to zap an unsuspecting Helldiver as it would an enemy.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: The M5 APC and its more heavily armed sibling, the M5-32 HAV. They're decked out with enough weaponry to make short work of enemy hordes as well as speedily get you across the map to the next objective. Of course, the downside is that it concentrates your entire squad into a single destructible vehicle, so if the driver accidentally goes careening off a cliff or a heavy enemy unit destroys it you run the risk of failing the mission instantly with no chance to reinforce.
• Badass Cape: Every Helldiver sports one; completing the Training course is how you earn the right to wear yours. You can unlock further, even more Badass Capes by levelling up, completing specific challenges, or simply by buying them.
• The Battlestar: Helldiver Super Destroyers are armed with a fearsome array of orbit-to-ground artillery, but also have small hangars that let them carry a complement of Pelican transport shuttles and Eagle fighter-bombers for added versatility. That said, the actual scale of the ship is quite small, especially compared to other sci-fi ships that would be called a Super Destroyer. It's overall configuration appears to be specialized for providing Close-Orbit-Support for Helldiver infantry, rather than the more general "do everything" role this trope typically entails.
• Bayonet Ya: One of the upgrades for the various assault rifles is a bayonet. This includes the Suppressor, which is otherwise deadly to the user if fired at point blank.
• Beam Spam:
  • The LAS-13 "Trident" is essentially a laser shotgun, shooting multiple beams in an arc. Its upgrade lets it fire even more beams. Having more than one squad member with this weapon can easily lead to a screen covered in beams.
  • The Sickle, a cousin of the aformentioned Trident, also does this, but rapid-fire like the Automatons. It fires pulses of laser that result in much higher damage than it's less spam-y cousin, the "Scythe", but also both more heating and actual recoil due to the gyroscope spinning inside the barrel shroud.
• Big Brother Is Employing You: The Helldivers are working for a government that brainwashes their citizens to have them fight for a cause they do not fully understand.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: Aside from the Illuminate, who at worst lean towards "survival of the smartest" if their enemy bio is true, the enemy factions spell out grim consequences for all organic life. The Cyborgs genuinely seem to think nothing of getting their members to rip off loads of their flesh for progressions in their ranks, and the Bugs... Well, they're the Swarm, and they clearly do spread like wildfire. Sure, Super Earth might be full of brainwashed masses, but it's a hell of a lot better than most of the other alternatives.
• Black Comedy: Helldivers gets a lot of mileage out of the fact players get to have a first-hand experience of precisely what happens when a fascist nation engages in the most inefficient and repressive method of waging war, culminating in it sending an army of brainwashed, poorly trained manchildren into battle. The result is a game built around creating naturally occurring trainwrecks, where friendly fire is a way of life, clumsy, panic-induced mistakes are commonplace, and every stupid death only laughably highlights what Super Earth really is like, despite the bald-faced lies that everything is going fine.
• Boring, but Practical: The game gives you more than a dozen perks to customize your character with. The most practical, given how helpful it is in avoiding friendly fire incidents, is the Laser Sight you start out with - enough so that it's become a default feature for most primary weapons in the sequel.
  • On the enemy side, At difficulties 13+, enemy scouts become much harder to take out. The bugs get an evolved Stalker, with the ability to regenerate health, cloak themselves and raise the alarm. The Illuminates get Obsidian Observers, which can reverse your controls upon revealing themselves and also have the ability to cloak themselves. Meanwhile, the cyborgs equip their scouts with... a simple metal shield. This simple shield makes the cyborg elite scouts MUCH harder to kill than the other two elite scouts due to requiring anti tank weapons or flanking.
  • Smoke grenades and smoke stratagems. They can prevent the enemy from sounding the alarm while Helldivers are inside or behind a smoke cloud, and stop enemy ranged attacks from firing if the smoke cloud blocks line of sight.
  • The basic Air Strike and Orbital Precision Strike. You can quickly access the former and begin with the latter, and simply put they're just really good at killing anything and everything they hit. Sure there are flashier Stratagems, but they alone can solve most problems a Helldiver will ever encounter, and the Air Strike in particular requires less precise placement and timing to do so.
• Boss-Only Level: Masters are fought in their own unique levels similar to Retaliation missions with the single objective of killing them. You will find this is harder than it sounds.
• Boss Remix: The three masters have distinct remixes of their faction's combat music, being even more intensive. A slightly slowed theme with increased percussion instruments marks the presence of a master.
• Bottomless Magazines: comes in two flavors, the lasers and arc throwers.
  • Lasers have a heat sink and are subject to Overheating, but if you manage your heat level you never have to reload a laser weapon.
  • Arc Throwers have truly unlimited ammo, the only limitation being the gun's fire rate.
• Bug War: One of the main enemy factions consists of hostile bugs, named the Terminids in II, that are to be subdued in any way necessary, according to the government. Turns out they're a good source of oil, though...
• Bullfight Boss: If you lack any anti-tank weapons, Bug Tanks can be defeated by baiting a charge out, then shooting at their unarmored rear. No such luck with the Behemoth though. Anti-Tank weapons or stratagems are mandatory to take them down.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": A played with example. What most people would call "ordnance" or "supply drops" are called "stratagems" in game. This is most likely supposed to be joke on using buzzwords in place of descriptive names to sound cooler.
• Capitalism Is Bad: Or rather, "Corporatism is bad", combining it with the games' anti-Fascist satire. Along with LIBERTY! and DEMOCRACY!, Super Earth's propaganda machine loves to constantly extoll the virtues of capitalism to its citizens and military alike, encouraging them to buy new gear and supplies to keep their war effort going, as well as advertising various corporations which apparently manufacture the products. All of this would play the trope straight due to Super Earth not being as heroic as they made out to be...except that most of those corporations are pretty much run by the Super Earth government, which micromanages every other aspect of its citizens' lives as well, including some rather...shady practices such as "donations" from citizens which are implied to not be as voluntary as they sound, and investigating citizens for treason for so much as leaving a negative review on a product sold by a government-run corporation. All in all, while the "capitalism" Super Earth practices is indeed not at all good, at the same time, it's barely a free market economy to begin with, being a Corporatist command economy masquerading as pseudo-capitalism which more resembles the economy of something like Fascist Italy or Imperial Japan.
• Close-Range Combatant: Most of the enemies you face, actually. The Bugs are particularly prominent, with their only ranged unit using long, burrowing tentacles to attack you, but the other races aren't much better - most of the Illuminates' combat forces are armed with energy staves, energy blades or short-ranged lightning tasers, while the Cyborgs prominently arm their forces with wicked blades alongside slow-firing firearms.
• Collateral Damage: Your weapons and stratagems are indiscriminate, so not only are your enemies vulnerable, but so are your allies, your escorts, and even yourself! This doesn't just apply to direct fire and explosions - anyone standing at the wrong angle behind a Helldiver with a recoilless rifle will find that this is not a game where the Missing Backblast trope is in effect.
• Concepts Are Cheap: Enforced as part of the series' fascist propaganda theme. Join the Helldivers and save Super Earth! Fight for freedom and democracy all across the stars!... whatever that means.
• Cool Chair: Illuminate Illusionists sit on a floating chair that comes with an integrated shield. Council Members get an even more grandiose chair, which looks more like a throne.
• Crapsack World:
  • The Helldivers, presented in-universe as the elite forces of humanity, are really just a bunch of fresh recruits who receive five whole minutes of training before being shipped off into a hellish Forever War. They're given unlimited access to heavy ordnance and are killed in friendly fire incidents as often as they're killed by the enemy. And when they're inevitably KIA, they're immediately replaced by another fresh recruit. The standard Super Earth Armed Forces don't seem to have it much better; we only ever see the aftermath of their engagements, and there are always more dead SEAF personnel than bugs or 'borgs.
  • It's implied many things we wouldn't consider more than minor luxuries are very expensive and unavailable to most Super Earth citizens. One woman remarks that she hopes that by the time she retires she'll raise her rank enough be able to afford a goldfish or "even a hamster," for her kids, assuming she even gets permission to have any children.
  • One crewmember will note that she's never actually been to Super Earth herself but hears that it's even more spectacular in-person. Meaning she's serving (and dying, potentially) for something she herself will likely never even benefit from.
  • Another will note that she overheard some talk in the barracks and reported said talk. The results? Those individuals were marked as dissidents and sent to freedom camps. And for the reporting, she gains Citizenship points, enough so to earn an extra doctor's visit during the year.
• Creator Provincialism: According to the lore, the nation that first set out to found Super Earth was apparently Sweden, and this is reflected in the Super Earth flag. In addition, when Stockholm became a Mega City, it was the only one to not get a number designation, instead being called "Prosperity City." Three guesses as to where Arrowhead Studios is located.
• Cycle of Hurting: How Patrols work. Getting caught by a Patrolling Mook will sound the alarm and summon a whole buttload of enemies onto your position, but it will also continue to summon Patrolling Mooks who will continue to sound the alarm, prolonging the alarm timer and preventing you from stopping the spawning of more difficult enemies. For this reason, it's very important to keep moving and not stay in one place for too long unless absolutely necessary so that the alarm timer can wear off.
• Dead Man's Switch: An activated stratagem beacon will proc as soon as it hits the ground, even if the Helldiver in question doesn't actually live to throw it. While this can sometimes be exploited as part of a Taking You with Me gambit in some cases, it's more likely to cause an accidental fragging or a panicked scatter when someone gets killed by a random shot next to their squadmates just before they can toss their beacon at the intended target.
• Death from Above: Anything that has the misfortune of standing under a Hellpod will suffer an instant death. This includes you and your fellow Helldivers.
• Degraded Boss: Mid level missions (usually 5-9) have an assassinate mission, where your goal is to kill that faction's top level enemy. Top level missions (13, 14 and especially 15) has said enemies basically replace most of the regular spawns.
• Determinator: Some of the Bugs have a bleedout mechanic similar to Helldivers. However, once they enter this bleedout state, they will charge and attack much faster than before. Their body can even fight with their head visibly destroyed and/or removed from their body! Regular warriors don't last long at all, but Brood Commanders can very easily kill an overconfident Helldiver in the short window they remain functional.
• Dirty Commies: The Cyborgs of Cyberstan are all communist. The Helldivers' goal is to teach them about managed democracy, by overwhelming force if needed.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A human terrorist sets off a bomb that kills eight civilians and claims it's on behalf of the Cyborgs. Super-Earth immediately declares war and mobilizes its entire military into subduing the Cyborg civilization.
• Double-Meaning Title: Helldivers refers to the titular Helldiver Corps, who are so called not only because they dive into hot enemy zones ("Hell") via Drop Pod, but because diving out of the way of danger is a central game mechanic.
• Drop Pod: Used to drop ammo supplies, turrets, and exo suits, along with the soldiers. In-universe, they're called Hellpods.
• Drop Ship: Used to extract Helldivers at the end of missions.
• Dystopia: It becomes clear that the government has been brainwashing the citizens of Super Earth in order to fight for their own benefits.
• Eagle Land: Flavor 3 wearing the mask of Flavor 1. The troops are sent to "spread democracy" by slaughtering the denizens of other planets with hot lead, launching missiles, and deploying oil wells one after another, all in the name of freedom. That being said, their society seems largely peaceful and prosperous despite the constant war, and they are arguably the lesser evil relative to the factions they're fighting against. Also see Satire.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: For those introduced to the series via Helldivers II, there are a couple noticeable differences from this game and its sequel:
  • There is no Democracy Officer aboard the Super Destroyer, their role basically being fulfilled by the Admiral. in fact, Democracy Officers as a concept don't appear to exist in Super Earth society.
  • The memetic C-01 Permit that is required to be filled out and approved before engaging in any child-creating recreational activities is instead called the "C1-PERM".
  • Since many planet names from Helldivers were reused for II despite planets and their names being procedurally generated, this can lead to some weird dissonance for those familiar with specific planets from II, including things like forest and desert planets bearing the name "Marfark", when Marfark is conclusively an ice planet in the Andromeda sector in II that was the site of the legendary Battle of Marfark on April 16th of 2024.
  • No actual in-game mention is made of the E-710 substance that the Bugs produce upon death and is crucial to FTL travel, when the fact that their Terminid descendants produce the stuff is the main reason the Bugs were domesticated in the first place and one of the biggest satirical aspects of II. The Bugs are instead presented as a more straightforward Horde of Alien Locusts.
• Emergent Gameplay: Invoked by the developers. One of the Helldivers series' defining attributes is its Galactic Campaign system, which encourages but does not force players to complete specific objectives on specific planets for the chance to temporarily knock an enemy faction out of the war, rewarding everyone who participated with unique cosmetics. This is intentionally done as a way of creating player-lead "stories" that drive the game's overall narrative.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: When a war is lost, a cutscene plays of the Helldiver fleet pulling away as Super-Earth explodes.
• The Empire: What Super Earth is; however, it wants you to think that it's The Republic.
• Enemy Summoner: Any Cyborg enemy with a Flare Gun in the first game can call in reinforcements if they manage to fire a signal flare off.
• Escort Mission: Three of the possible objectives:
  • "Escort Survivors" involves escorting a group of four survivors to a facility on the map (the objective is complete even if only one of them arrives). A player walks up to the them, and from them on the survivors will follow that player until they reach the objective, the players tell them to stop or they're all dead. The scrappiness of those missions is noted by the achievement unlocked for escorting the four survivors to the facility, named "Who likes escort missions anyway?"
  • "Escort Resource Convoy" Protecting a train on a rail. The train will move forward as long as neither an enemy or a player touches it.
  • Returning an object to the objective point. A player has to grab it and sees themselves incapable of running or using two-handed weapons (almost all of them).
• Everything Trying to Kill You: In addition to the hordes upon hordes of baddies you'll be fending off, almost every single other game mechanic has the potential to kill you. Fat-finger disarming an explosive? Dead. Accidentally jump into a 50-foot pit? Dead. Exit an APC a little too quickly so that it does a little collision damage? Dead. Mistakenly call down a Stratagem on top of yourself? Dead. And the less said about all the ways your idiot teammates can get you killed, the better.
• Evil vs. Evil: Just because Super Earth is The Empire does not mean their opponents are any better; lose the Galactic Campaign, and the victorious faction will destroy the planet out of spite.
  • Super Earth is an authoritarian^note where do you think the "managed" part comes into play?, corporatist dystopia masquerading as a utopian democracy. Its citizens are at best brainwashed or amoral to immoral. They start wars for the sake of greater profit or power while using propaganda to demonize any enemy as a soulless, pitiless scum to be put down for the sake of democracy, freedom, and liberty… unfortunately they’re not entirely wrong. This is not a nice galaxy.
  • Super Earth went to war against and slaughter the Bugs primarily because their corpses decay into a useful source of fuel. They are also a species of giant insects that will kill and devour anything that isn’t them and seem to be able to spread across the galaxy somehow. They are highly dangerous, aggressive, and ridiculously invasive. The relationship is like Weyland-Yutani from Alien thinking Xenomorphs are worth exploiting on colonies and going about as well as you’d think.
  • Cyborgs are a cyborg collective that Super Earth went to war with for seeing them as a threat to their empire and used a terrorist attack pretext (that likely wasn’t done by the Cyborgs). They are also utterly ruthless, willing to carve up civilians to make them cyborgs, don’t care for the idea of prisoners, and blow up Earth if they win.
  • The Illuminate is a highly advanced alien species that had, supposedly, great weapons of mass destruction that Super Earth wanted and, sensing a pattern here, used it as pretext for war. The Illuminate are intellectual-based Social Darwinists that are all too happy to use those WMD’s against Super Earth for doing this.
• Faction Calculus: Every enemy faction tends to have its own strengths and weaknesses in the field:
  • The Cyborgs lean towards Balanced with a bit of Powerhouse. Their units are both tough and damaging in equal measure, and they have arguably the widest unit variety in the game, with equally good ranged and melee capabilities. They are also the only faction to field proper tanks, meaning that AT weapons are all but required to face them on directly. However, they are also on average the slowest faction, and their units tend to be large, cumbersome targets that fall easily to massed offensive stratagems. Automatons maintain this theming, though they have more ranged units.
  • The Bugs lean towards powerhouse with a bit of spammer. They have the heaviest armor in the game on average, and their strategies almost entirely boil down towards overwhelming the helldivers with hordes of tough, fast heavy infantry backed up by the occasional giant bug that can soak up fire for it's smaller allies and crush the helldivers with a well-placed charge. To further cement this strategy, they are almost exclusively melee. They have a few invisible assassin-like units that can leap into the fray to try and pick off a lone helldiver, but outside of that they rely entirely on their speed and durability to rush the helldivers with few tricks. The Terminids continue this theme as well.
  • The Illuminates are subversive with a bit of cannon. Their units stat-wise are some of the worst in the game, having little health and almost no heavy armor to speak of, and their weapons tend to either do little damage or are telegraphed well in advance. To make up for this, nearly all of their units have a special trick or ability to even the odds, ranging from debilitating debuffs that can slow you down or reverse your control scheme, high mobility via dashes or teleportation in a localized area, or frequent usage of invisibility. On top of this, their shields, while able to be broken by nearly any weapon, can easily block explosive or piercing weaponry in their tracks, making their crowds more durable than their stats would otherwise imply.
• Failed a Spot Check: When prone, Helldivers are much harder to notice by enemy scouts, requiring them to almost be touching the helldivers to notice them.
• False Utopia: The government brainwashes the citizens of Super Earth by using "managed democracy'' where the results of the elections are more predictable; citizens answer a series of questions at voting booths and the automated system picks the candidate/etc. that best reflects the citizen's answers. This has led to the government remaining in more-or-less full control while the citizens believe they are fighting for the freedom and safety of their nation.
• Flare Gun: The Cyborg Squad Leader, Legionnaire's grenade launcher doubles as a flare gun that can call in additional reinforcements. The IFV has a dedicated flare gun on the left of its turret.
  • Automaton light infantry have one integrated into their left hands. If they are allowed to fire off a signal flare, Automaton Dropships will begin closing in on the flare's general position to offload some reinforcements.
• Forever War: Zig-zagged. In terms of gameplay, the Galactic War is this, as no matter what the Helldivers accomplish it will always reset back to the way it was at the start after about a month. However, Helldivers II conclusively shows that the outcome of the war does canonically end with Super Earth re-enslaving the Cyborgs on Cyberstan, pushing the Bugs back to Kepler Prime and wiping the Illuminate from the galaxy, ending the war with a conclusive victory in their favor.
• Fictional Holiday: October 26th is "Liberty Day"; not coincidentally, this was when the original novel of Starship Troopers released in 1959. Out of universe, the developers marked this date by having giveaways and contests.
• Friendly Fireproof:
  • Averted, friendly fire is always on and there is no way to disable the feature. This requires the players to carefully plan their actions during the games many chaotic combat sequences. Of special note is the fact that you can get squished by your reinforcements' Drop Pods, and your extraction.
  • This goes both ways, as enemies can damage each other with their attacks. Illuminate snipers think nothing of shooting their kin in the back, Chargers won't hesitate to crush any smaller bugs that get in their way... and neither will Bile Titans!
• Geo Effects: Helldivers are slowed by water and snow, while enemies aren't. Equipping the All Terrain Boots perk prevents you form being slowed by water or snow.
• Glass Cannon: Helldivers themselves can dish out a lot of firepower, both from their weapons and stratagem calldowns, but cannot take much damage in turn.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: Super Earth is certainly invested in convincing their citizens that their wars against hostile alien forces are this, though if you take their propaganda at face-value, they're only defending humanity against enemies who hate freedom. They're certainly not xenophobes out to exploit or exterminate other races for personal benefit, no sir.
• Heavily Armored Mook: The Obelisk is a standout in the Illuminate forces for being the only enemy possessing enough armor to block bullets when encased in its shell. This armor is strong enough to block even the RL-112 Recoilless Rifle's shots.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Most Offensive Stratagems are some form of this, their primary use being the rapid clearing of an area of a large group of enemies.
• Hold the Line: Retaliatory Strikes have no objective other than "Survive". These missions take place in small arena like areas, where movement is heavily limited.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Soldiers will often use the phrase "Sweet Liberty!" in the same vein as "Oh my God!" or similar blasphemes. They may also say things like "liberty-forsaken", "freedom-loving", and the like.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: In addition to the "spray and pray", "scorched-earth" nature of most Stratagems which do not make a papable distinction between friend and foe, "trigger discipline" do not appear to be words in the Helldiver vocabulary, and many sources of teamkilling are likely to result from a careless Diver accidentally pumping their squadmate full of lead in a hot zone, or an inattentive Diver wandering into someone's firing line as they're laying down heavy fire.
• Immune to Bullets: Armored enemies cannot be hurt with normal firearms (shown as a faint blue impact flash), and require anti-tank weaponry. This applies threefold to the three Master Assaults, who are outright immune to anything short of an R-112 round.
• Instakill Mook: Several of the enemies in each faction are capable of one hit killing Helldivers. In particular...
  • The Cyborg IFV's turret can gib Helldivers with a direct hit. If the helldivers try to abuse the IFV's blindspot, it is quite willing to attempt to crush them under its treads.
  • The Illuminate Obelisk will instantly cleave any Helldiver caught in its wall when it fully materialzes.
  • The Bug Tanks/Behemoths charge will crush any Helldiver in its way.
• Interface Screw: Some Illuminates can inflict this to you, inverting the controls for a short time. This includes stratagem input.
• It's Raining Men: The Helldivers' M.O. is launching directly into battle using Hellpods, kicking ass and taking names.
• Iwo Jima Pose: Parodied in the Helldiver recruitment video, where several divers impale a bug with a flagpole bearing Super Earth flag and enthusiastically celebrate with a chest bump.
• Kill It with Fire: The firebomb stratagem, the flamethrower, and one of the DLC exoskeletons. Fully upgrading the double-barreled shotgun also gives it incendiary ammunition. Cyborg Immolators happily use this against you - go prone to extinguish the flames.
• Land Mine Goes "Click!": Not only can you deploy various land mines of your own, but there are intermittent mined areas you can find out during missions. If you step on a mine and hear an activation click, you have about half a second to dive out of the way before your body evaporates into red mist.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Illuminate Council Members have a reddish-brown skin tone, compared to the rest of their kin's purple skin tone. They also get an even cooler chair than the Illusionists.
• Loading Screen: In-Game justification type. When loading a mission, the Hellpods are shown leaving the ship, and the loading time is presumably the time it takes to make planetfall. ^note "Did you know that tips are shown on loading screens?"
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me:
  • Cyborg Hulks have a massive slab of armor for a left arm, which can harmlessly deflect even anti-tank weapons. Thankfully, they can't shoot or move while holding the shield over their (relatively) unarmored front. Legionnaires also get a smaller shield. While it doesn't protect them from anti-tank weapons, it does make them immune to anything short of anti-tank weapons from the front.
  • As of the "A New Hell" update, Cyborg Legionnaires. Essentially, they are Squadleader Soldiers carrying a smaller version of the Hulk's shield. They only appear on Level 13+ planets.
• Marathon Level: Retaliation missions can take upwards of 30 minutes despite their only objective being "Kill X number of enemies" due to just how many enemies you need to kill, and part of the mission type's challenge is the endurance and persistence required to carry your squad through an unrelenting half hour of non-stop combat.
• Mini-Mecha: The EXO-44 Walker mech, along with its variants the EXO-48 Obsidian and EXO-51 Lumberer. Slower than Helldivers on foot, but more heavily armored and equipped with much heavier firepower.
• Monster Compendium: On the bridge, you can look at the Galactic Encyclopedia which gives information about any enemy you have encountered.
• More Dakka:
  • EVERY Helldiver weapon is incredibly damaging and most are rapid fire weapons. The game encourages "Conservation of fire" to preserve your VERY limited ammunition. However, most matches dissolve into panicked arcs of fire against huge swarms of enemies.
  • The vehicles on the other hand are all about unloading a lot of fire down-range - all weapons are full auto.
  • The Mech and Mini-gun turret in particular are this trope personified.
  • Laser weaponry has unlimited ammunition and its rate of fire is constant. However, if you overheat it, you pull out the overloaded heatsink and slap in a fresh one.
• Necessary Drawback: Just about everything.
  • Laser weapons have functionally unlimited ammo as long as you don't overload the heat sink (once you do, you have to replace it, it won't cool down on its own anymore). But lasers are not as powerful as ballistic weapons: the constant output of lasers is balanced by the fact that they take longer to kill their targets.
  • The various vehicles are all extremely powerful, but have limited ammo that you cannot reload; the EXO-44 Walker has a machine gun that's as powerful as the man-portable version you get at the start of the game and an 8-missile pod that is not anti-armor and runs dry very quickly, for example. You're also limited in the amount of times that you can call them in per mission, unlike other supply drops. And they can and will hurt other players just by touching them.
  • The Anti-Armor weapons can take out heavily armored enemies in a single shot, but only have a single shot before they need to be reloaded. And reloading them takes either an inordinate amount of time (for a single user) or requires another person to work with you (which takes up their backpack slot and makes your powerful gun useless if they die).
  • Turrets can provide excellent cover and don't require any input from you to do their dirty work. They also have infinite ammunition. They also don't care if you happen to be standing between them and their target and will gleefully gun you down if necessary.
  • Deployable air support, such as strafing runs and bombing runs, inflict excellent damage on enemy troops. They also require you to call in the support (during which you are vulnerable), throw the support beacon (during which you are vulnerable), and take a few seconds to arrive (during which the enemy can and likely will move). And of course, if you don't throw it far enough, you'll quickly find that they do a lot of damage to you as well.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Averted by the extraction pilot. If a team member is dead and the rest of the squad is on board, it takes off. Can be played straight by the players, who may wait outside the extraction vehicle and call reinforcements (revive) of a downed member, hoping to get the highest score (and therefore more XP) from a level. However, if at least one squad member is on board and the timer runs out, the mission ends, leaving behind anyone outside the extraction.
• Notice This: Samples have a golden sheen around them to help them stand out from the environment and prevent them from blending in with the foliage.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • While Defensive Stratagems and Reinforces are normally just meant to supply you with gear and revive your dead teammates respectively, the Hellpods they arrive in will One-Hit Kill anything they land on, meaning they can be used to take out Heavily Armored Mooks and other high-priority targets in a tight spot with a bit of finagling.
  • APCs are meant to be traversal vehicles, but since they're decked out with weaponry and can withstand a fair bit of punishment they can work just fine as wholly stationary armored turrets in certain situations. this goes double for the M5-32 HAV, since its main gun is an anti-tank turret with a fair bit of ammunition.
• Orbital Bombardment: An entire category of stratagems involves using the orbital cannon on your super destroyer. In addition, when summoned for reinforcement, Hellpods can be steered into enemies; landing on top of an Automaton Foundary or a Bile Titan is a good way to do a lot of damage to it, potentially instantly obliterating it.
• Oh, Crap!: Occasionally the Helldivers' bravado vanishes, resulting in a panicked human being realizing they're in the middle of a Suicide Mission at best, but it's understated. Even if they survive the mission instead of dying and being replaced with reinforcements, naturally they're just going to go back to their indoctrinated "kill all enemies of Super Earth" mindset, but it shows that fanaticism only goes so far in the face of mortality.
• One Bullet Clips: Entirely averted - not only are the remaining bullets in a magazine discarded when you reload, they are discarded at the very start of the reload, so if you interrupt it before finishing (by, say, dodging, meleeing, or bringing up the map), your gun will be empty. You may experience some growing pains if you've grown too accostomed to this trope.
• One-Hit Polykill: Weapons with the Unstoppable trait have ammo which is capable of piercing through multiple enemies at once, making them very useful for clearing out hordes of lined-up Mooks quickly.
• One-Man Army: Any solo Helldiver can still expect to easily rack up dozens of kills, possibly even hundreds, during the course of a high-threat mission. Retaliatory Strike and Extermination missions require you to kill X number of enemies in an enclosed area, and the number is rarely less than 100.
• Optional Stealth: Killing enemy scouts before they raise the alarm means only having to worry about patrols instead of having to defeat swarms of enemies while completing objectives but completing them with the alarm raised is still possible and doesn't affect the experience gained.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: Super Earth's propaganda constantly peddles the word "democracy" but in reality, the planet is a global dictatorship where brainwashed citizens are sent en masse to die for causes they don't comprehend under the excuse of "spreading democracy".
• Physical, Mystical, Technological: The three enemy factions. The Bugs are the Physical, relying on their armored physiology and Natural Weapons. The Cyborgs are the Technological, relying on cybernetics and more conventional mechanical units. The Illuminate are the Mystical — their technology is advanced to the point where it almost seems like magic, being able to alter the minds of others.
• Poor Communication Kills: A degree of awareness and communication between a squad of Helldivers is vital to avoid getting wiped out, as a lack of it can result in things ranging from a Helldiver lagging behind trying to pick up a sample to calling down critical Stratagems on top of one another and destroying vital equipment.
• Procedural Generation: The universe, planets, and mission environments.
• Propaganda Machine: The Super Earth government spreads an image of false democracy and freedom and claims that the various alien species in the galaxy are a threat to humanity that must be eliminated in order to have their citizens join their forces and fight for them. The hints of the true nature of the war and such can be spotted in many of the official videos (in-universe and otherwise) for the Helldivers. On the surface, video clips meant to be positive and inspiring are often bombastic and full of flair, as one might expect, especially ones that take place during combat. However, careful eyed viewers will notice that such clips are often staged and the ones that aren't, either cut away before the 'main' Helldiver dies (from explosions, attacks, friendly fire...) or obscure Helldivers in the background getting killed due to said explosions, quick cuts, and the like. And even a completely staged setpiece of a Helldiver triumphantly standing on a pile of bugs in front of the Super Earth flag has the arm of another helldiver poking up from under the pile and waving for help... only to jerk and go limp when the Helldiver on top steps on the pile and it sinks slightly and, presumably, crushing their fellow Helldiver.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: Being a male or female Helldiver has no effects on the gameplay.
• Punny Name: The Element 710 which allows for Faster-Than-Light Travel. If you rotate '710' 180 degrees, it looks like "OIL", which is exactly what it's an allegory for.
• Recurring Riff: The Helldivers Main Theme's central eight-note melody frequently jingles throughout the game, whether you're completing an objective or making your last stand at the extraction.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: The P-6 Gunslinger. It's a high-skill requirement Hand Cannon types with slow reloads but considerable power if you can aim them well.
• Satire: The game is a heavy-handed satire of American neoconservatism and War on Terror politics. The Helldivers are the forces of a dystopian Super Earth fighting offensive wars against various alien races in the name of "freedom and democracy", but of course Super Earth is really just a People's Republic of Tyranny that is not so different. They don't even practice genuine democracy on Super Earth, as elections are tightly regulated and implied to be a sham.
  • The reason for Super Earth's war against the Illuminate? The squid aliens have nano-fusion obliterator bombs and the government feels threatened by an alien race who can rival or exceed human technology. And the war against the Bugs? Well, when they die, their bodies rapidly deteriorate into a byproduct essential for space travel technology...
• Screaming Warrior: The Helldivers have No Inside Voice and will yell and scream every single thing they are doing. If you lay down sustained fire on the enemy for a few seconds they'll let out a cacophony of sound that is somewhere between laughing hysterically and crying. Very obvious with the first and second voice packs in II, with Erica Lindbeck and Yuri Lowenthal going all-out on the maniacal laughter.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Played straight for three of the four available shotguns (even the laser one) but averted with the SG-8 which has a range and spread that makes it a viable weapon to use at mid-long range.
• Shout-Out:
  • The entire game is one for Starship Troopers. Several Trophies and Codex entries are almost direct quotes from the film ("Next time I see you, I'll have to salute you"; Aim for the center mass, etc).
  • One of Super Earth's most prominent government agencies is responsible for controlling information and suppressing dissent amongst the population. Its name? The Ministry of Truth.
  • There is a Twitch drop armor set, called the TR-117 Alpha Commander armor, being an obvious nod to John-117, aka the Master Chief, right down to the green armor.
  • The Achievements are full of these, with some referencing Warcraft's unit commentary when you click on them.
  • One of the DLC weapons is a boxy, shoulder-fired four-tube missile launcher very similar to the M202 FLASH popularized by the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Commando. It's even part of the "Commando" DLC pack.
  • In the second game, you can actually name your Super Destroyer The Hammer of Dawn. Bonus points if you have the Orbital Laser stratagem to go with it.
    • In general, the naming convention of the Super Destroyers is an Affectionate Parody of the names found in Halo and Gears of War, featuring the same "(prefix) of (suffix)" setup but with a ridiculous amount of possible prefixes and suffixes, which can lead to names as conventional sounding as Defender of Freedom and as silly as Superintendent of Family Values. Other potential referential names include the Sword of the Stars.
• Single-Biome Planet: Every planet you can visit is of a specific type and the entire surface resembles that type. For example, Snow planets are covered in movement-restricting snow and Volcanic planets are covered in lava-spurting fissures.
• Smoke Out: One perk replaces your standard grenades with smoke grenades. They do no damage, but the smoke they release blocks enemy line of sight. This prevents enemy scouts from sounding the alarm if the smoke is between them and the Helldivers.
• Spent Shells Shower: All the weapons to a certain extent, but it's especially noticeable with the Minigun Turret, Heavy MG, and Exosuit weapons.
• Sting: A distinct sound will play if you come close to an enemy whilst no enemies are currently alerted, and when you (or they) move far enough away. This occurs even if the game's music is turned off, and gives you a little bit of a sixth sense for enemies that might otherwise sneak up behind you whilst your attention is elsewhere.
• Stealth Parody: Much like the film it takes heavy inspiration from, Helldivers satirizes Military Science Fiction in ways you have to go out of your way to notice, mostly concerning things in the extended universe and encyclopedia entries giving hints that Super Earth's government isn't as benign as it seems and it's waging imperialistic war across the galaxy for its own benefit.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Nux-223, Shredder missile, grenades, grenade launcher, missile launchers,...
  • Helldivers that have their arms damaged will be unable to aim properly, and will be unable to throw their stratagem beacons (and grenades) as far. Should their legs be crippled, they will move slower and lose the ability to sprint. If their chest is hemorrhaging, they will suffer Damage Over Time till they die or use a stim.
  • Terminids that have their legs destroyed will be forced to hobble on their remaining legs (except for Chargers, who die if a leg gets destroyed). For heavier armored Terminids such as the Charger or Bile Titan, a Recoilless round can destroy their armor and expose the fleshy bits to shoot at with regular bullets.
  • Automatons can have their arms blasted off, preventing them from firing their weapons, throwing grenades, slashing at you with melee blades, or signaling in a dropship. Beware that they can still kick or stomp you. Cyborg and Automaton tanks can have their treads blown up, immobilizing them, but beware; their turrets are still fully functional and capable of killing you. There's even an achievement in II for leaving a mission whilst an armless Hulk is still alive.
• Take That!: There are several named background characters who are thinly veiled Expies of real world politicians: "Senator John W. Killjoy", for example, who talks about seizing WMDs from aggressive aliens and preventing them from being "too advanced", in case they start a war against Super Earth. And to stop this, Super Earth declares war. "Cowel Pollin" also gets a mention.
• Tech Tree: A very simplified version, where weapons and stratagems ca be upgraded by collecting Samples.
• Throw-Away Guns: Both games feature the EAT-17 Expendable Anti-Tank stratagem. It calls down two rocket launchers pre-loaded with a single rocket powerful enough to punch through tank grade armor and deliver a One-Hit Kill to anything that isn't an enemy master or Bile Titan. After shooting off the rocket, Helldivers will immediately toss the used up EAT onto the ground, letting them pick up the other one, or use a different support weapon. The first game also received the MGX-42 fairly late in the release cycle, a 300-round machinegun operating off the 'metal storm' principle of stacked, electronically-fired caseless ammunition in an array of barrels.
• Time Skip: Helldivers 2 is set 100 years after the original Helldivers, and the Federation's victory over the three original enemy factions.
• Trial by Friendly Fire: There is always a chance a stray bullet (or bomb) can hit a friendly. Sometimes, that's a risk you need to take for liberty.
• Triumphant Reprise: If you are detected during extraction, the game will play a more action packed and slightly faster remix of the title theme, inspiring you and your team to hold out in the name of democracy!
• Truth in Television: “Managed democracy” is a thing in real life, also known as guided democracy.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: In most co-op horde shooters, you don't have to take things into account like teamkilling (at least not to the I Just Shot Marvin in the Face extreme this game presents), shooting armor-piercing rounds at the right angle so an enemy's armor doesn't deflect them, aiming for enemies' center of mass to deal the most damage, having to wait for a vehicle to come to a complete stop to avoid getting hurt when exiting it, etc.
• Universal Ammunition: Sniper rifle, pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher backpack, doesn't matter. Picking up any ammo box will refill (at least some of) the weapon's ammunition, regardless of whether it was a random one that spawned during mission generation or one you called for. Likewise grenade boxes found during missions will always restore 4 grenades regardless of what type you have equipped.
• Unlockable Content: Weapons and Perks are unlocked as you progress in levels. Stratagems become available as you complete certain missions.
• Variable Mix: Both the original and its sequel have music that changes depending on if you're in combat, out of it, or extracting, and will switch between as the situation changes.
• Video Game Raids: Essentially how Assaults work. After a Helldiver builds up enough Influence in a sector to unlock the local Master fight, they have around two-and-a-half hours to defeat the Master inside the Assault mission before it closes again. These missions are basically impossible without a well-coordinated full squad of competent Helldivers to back you up, but they pay massive dividends of Influence and Experience Points if you succeed.
• War Is Glorious: According to the government of the dystopian Super Earth, war spreads democracy and ensures freedom, despite the fact that it's gotten humanity stuck into a Forever War with multiple alien species.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Illuminates lack heavy armor, and can be defeated without using any anti-tank weapons/stratagems at all. On the flipside, they have the most gimmicks out of the three factions. Their shields can block overkill damage, so you'll need two explosives to defeat a shielded unit. Three of their units can invert your controls, which can be deadly if you aren't prepared for it. Their scouts are semi transparent, making them hard to see at times.
• We Have Reserves: While Command would prefer if you extracted alive, losses are basically brushed aside and extracting alive is not conditional to mission victory once main objectives have been completed. In the sequel, in the event of a Total Party Kill, everyone gets reinforced with the voiceover saying "Replacement squad being deployed".
  • The enemies aren't very different either. The Bugs will happily swarm you in the hundreds, Cyborgs will drop in more forces to take down helldivers the moment a signal flare is shot, and Illuminates seem to be able to teleport in endless amounts of reinforcements, regardless of how many you kill. Retaliatory Strikes can see you kill upwards of five hundred enemies on max difficulty, and they'll still keep coming at you.

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For Freedom! for Democracy! FOR SUPER EARTH!