Helldivers 2’s comedy comes from propaganda — that’s why it’s so fun
Helldivers 2 does a fantastic job of straddling the line between being a great game to goof around in with your friends, and delivering actual commentary and world-building about the folly of an oppressive regime. You play as a titular Helldiver, shot down to enemy planets in pods that look like giant bullets — no obvious symbolism there — to fight back waves of nasty Terminid bugs and evil robots. The gameplay is great, but what I’ve come to truly love is the goofy Super Earth propaganda, and how it perfectly encapsulates fascism as a ridiculous ideology that is doomed to fail.
There is a running meta-narrative alongside Helldivers 2, in which Super Earth command (aka the developers) tells the players what fronts to fight on and what enemies to prioritize. When the community pulls together to achieve these objectives, everybody gets Warbond medals, which they can spend on valuable loot and cosmetics. If they fail, nobody gets a medal, and something usually goes terribly wrong. The secret trick, though, is that even when things go right, they’ll still go bad, because Super Earth is terrible at the whole galactic liberation thing.
If you stop and listen to all of that propaganda, something becomes clear: We’re the baddies. The Terminids were released from Super Earth facilities, and we’re killing them because they’re a great source of space oil. Super Earth used the Automatons as slaves, and they’re engaging in a fully justified revolt. Sure, it’s not immediately obvious, since most players are focused on staying alive and unlocking new stratagems, but as you stop to read environmental text and listen to broadcasts, it all becomes clear. Probably best not to mention it, though; according to one broadcast, dissidents are identified, arrested, tried, and executed.
The constant propaganda is delivered with such gusto that it’s hard not to be won over. One advertisement sneers that the Automatons should have been grateful with what they had, but now they’re choosing to
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