If 2024 has shown us anything, it’s that the multiplayer live service boom is well and truly over. Despite being objectively fun to play and super polished, games such as Suicide Squad, XDefiant, and Concord failed to make a splash – the latter being dead on arrival in one of the biggest gaming flops ever. It casts a grim shadow over the wider multiplayer genre, proving that there’s really only room for a handful of majorly successful online games at one time.
That’s not to say there weren’t any great multiplayer games in 2024, though. While legions of gamers are still glued to Fortnite, Warzone, Counter-Strike, and League of Legends, there have been some hot new contenders, one of them arriving at the start of the year…
Playing big, bombastic shooters with friends is always more fun, but Helldivers 2 is the kind of game to remind you that these can also be silly and just funny as well. It takes the satire and violence of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, and adds in a bit of player-led workplace comedy. Sure, it’s fun to call in a huge orbital barrage or minefield on a bug’s nest, but it’s funny to do that five seconds after your team has just rushed in and “forget” to call it out in time.
Arrowhead has always made fun and silly co-op games where the fire is always friendly, and explosions are always excessive, but the jump from the top-down action of the original to a third person view with more realistic graphics just managed to capture the attention of gamers at large. Add to that an engaging meta layer to the game, actively engaging with the community through highs and lows of balance and gameplay changes, and the recent reveal of a new enemy faction, and this is easily the best multiplayer game of the year.
– Stefan L
Through the last generation, it’s felt as though couldn’t so much as blink without a new Warhammer 40,000 game being announced, resulting in a never-ending slew of PC and mobile titles. With 40K having witnessed a huge spike in popularity over the
Helldivers 2
Space Marine 2
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6