Helldivers 2 looks a lot like Metal Gear Solid 5 sometimes, but devs and fans alike agree that's great: 'More games should directly copy stuff'
Helldivers 2 fans (a demographic that encompasses 68% of the planet so far as I can tell) are feeling the spirit of Big Boss. Specifically, they've noticed that the game's movement and more than a few of its animations bear a striking resemblance to 2014's Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and its follow-up The Phantom Pain. And you know what? They couldn't be happier about it.
Originally highlighted in a TikTok video from AnthonyCSN, the similarities between the movement animations in Helldivers 2 and MGS5 are impossible to ignore when you put the games side-by-side. From sprinting, to crouch-walking, to diving—there's a bit of Kojima in every step you take as you spread Managed Democracy throughout the cosmos.
But AnthonyCSN wasn't putting Helldivers on blast. «This feels like Metal Gear Solid 5,» said the TikToker, «and that's a good thing.» He added that "[MGS5] had the best gameplay that the [Metal Gear] series ever had… for Helldivers to even be reminiscent of that is great, I love it." That statement earned a democratic «ooh-rah!» from the community, but it's drawn the eye of game devs too, and they all agree: Good artists borrow, great artists steal.
«I'm not kidding when I say more games should just directly copy stuff that feels good from games they like and riff from there,» wrote Obsidian studio design director Josh Sawyer on Twitter. «The act of copying something requires you to do a lot of critical analysis, and it's extremely informative even if you scrap everything and start over.»
As an RPG veteran, Sawyer would certainly know. Tease apart any classic roleplaying game and you'll find a mish-mash of narrative and mechanical inspirations from all sorts of forebears, whether it's D&D and Tolkien or Renaissance art and literature. Heck, the same goes for any genre. Once upon a time we called every FPS a «Doom clone.»
Other devs were quick to agree with Sawyer, and even pointed out the mechanics they'd yoinked for their own games. Pacific Drive's Seth
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