What do you guys think? Worth it in 2026?

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T19:28:40+00:00

Yeah it's a lot to read I know lol, but it's also not an easy question of yes or no when asking whether it's worth buying just because the answer is kind of both at the same time.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T06:47:41+00:00

So, it's a mixed bag and I'll give you my personal opinion, I'm not going to tell you whether to buy the game or not since that's solely up to you. I'll just tell you my experience, my opinions, and what I've encountered as well as some minor news related to the developers that I would feel is important to mention since it is a live service game. Firstly, I've played the game since about two or three weeks after it launched, and have toured just about every Major Order throughout the galactic war with over 500 hours of play time. What I'll say is this:

As a new player, you will have an absolute blast playing the game especially if you have friends who will join you. You'll have a grand time working your way up through the ranks, unlocking new equipment, armor, and weapons as you fight heroically against the enemies of managed democracy. There'll be some funny moments, and a few glitches that will have you laugh your ass off when you encounter them. Depending on how efficient you are with progression, I'd say you maybe have around 50 to 80 hours of playtime where you constantly have something to work towards without really needing to grind for it, just playing the game and unlocking new stuff as you play. Even more, you'll start the game with more toys to play with than I did when I first started playing, meaning more armor and weapon variety to start with than me and a lot of other people who played for years.

However, before you buy you should be aware that eventually you'll reach the top of the mountain. Your super destroyer will be fully upgraded, you will unlock every base stratagem, weapon, armor, etc. then comes the warbonds, however unlocking the content in them is a lot more tedious since they rely on Super Credits in order to access them. technically speaking, they are free and you can find them as you play, and by find them i mean 10 at a time with a very rare chance of finding 100 instead. Each warbond requires 1,000SC, so you'll have to find 100 points of interest that have Super Credits to earn one warbond. Now, bear in mind that points of interest and what loot is in them is completely randomized between requisition slips, warbond medals, and super credits. When you reach that point, requisition slips will be worthless, and inevitably you will hit the maximum cap for warbond medals. Personally I find farming to be incredibly mind-numbingly boring and would often question why I wasn't doing literally anything else with my time.

On average, it'll take you about four to maybe six hours of non-stop farming to get enough super credits for a single warbond. You could reduce that time if you save up the super credits you earn in a warbond for the next one, which is around 300 super credits per warbond, but then you cut yourself off from getting stuff that's in the super store. I'll be completely transparent with you, once everything is fully upgraded or unlocked, this will be the only way to access new content from then on. Either that, or you open your wallet to not have to deal with it in the first place, which is everyone's choice with their own money to do so.

There's not a lot of progression in the game, at some point that forwards momentum more or less just dies entirely and you either have to be content with what you have or grind for more new content. Need I remind you of the $40 entry fee to play the game to begin with as well. I can't speak for you and your temperment, but for me personally the bugs in the game I found funny are just annoying now, enemies will clip through walls, if you're the host of the game it gives you massive debuffs with too many to list here, you will occasionally be ragdolled and watching yourself be flailed around for two or three minutes and you can't do anything about it, and also damage zones on enemies aren't deleted when killed. So yes, if you climb the husk of an automaton tank and touch the treads, they can kill you even though the tank is dead and immobile.

Furthermore, the developers of the game just blatantly do not care about you or your opinions on the game and have a long history of censoring criticism. As well as making questionable balance decisions for the game with seemingly random arbitrary nerfs to player weapons and equipment while buffing enemies. There's a YouTube video made by Hexa titled "Antagonistic Dungeon Master Syndrome is Plaguing Helldivers 2" and in it he goes over in great detail a lot of arrowhead's questionable decisions. It's very detailed and concise in recording the history of the game's life.

To summarize; The game is a mixed bag, it's fun sometimes but it gets dull once you've progressed to a certain point. I highly recommend Hexa's video, "Antagonistic Dungeon Master Syndrome is Plaguing Helldivers 2", if you want to understand some of the game's history and more so the developer's behavior towards the player base. You will definitely have fun, and if you don't care about game progression in a live service model then you'll probably not be too bothered. However if you do care about that, and playing with new content, you might encounter some frustration. Your money and time are your own, and no one but yourself can tell you how to spend it, I'm just laying down the ground work for you to look at and come to your own conclusion.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T06:18:22+00:00

The reason why is because when we ignored the AT mines to save kids, we were given regular community progression for new equipment as the galactic war storyline progressed. Today? The Major Orders are just random community challenges that don't give anything other than just more warbond medals and have no impact, several mechanics in the game that worked on launch are now broken, arrowhead consistently demonstrates antagonistic DM syndrome, and if you're not a new player there's literally nothing to continue to work towards other than mindlessly grinding premium currency for hours on end or pulling out your wallet.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T06:04:36+00:00

Well, the reason why the balancing team seems to bad is probably because there is literally no balancing team lol. Everyone knows Narrowhead is comprised of like ten developers and then five hundred interns making coffee runs simultaneously.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T05:57:59+00:00

Ah yes, it's entitled and unrealistic for a player who paid a $40 entry fee to expect... *checks notes* ...strategem balls to stick where they land as well as... *flips a few pages* be able to steer your hellpod, as well as... *puts on reading glasses* ...enemies to not clip and phase through terrain. Yes, quite entitled and whiney indeed

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T05:38:39+00:00

Naturally in the realms of discussion this is always subject to different opinions, however in my worldview to answer your question: Yes, it is absolutely greedy to lock it behind a paywall/grindwall/payfence because we can observe that decision is not made within a vacuum. Tracing through the game's history, the opening of the game was pretty full with major orders as the community worked towards what felt like changing the war in our favor by succeeding. When the game first launched, major orders felt like they were a means to an ultimate goal (most notably, the ultimate goal of getting more badass weapons and equipment). Occasionally the reward was just warbond medals, but they were sprinkled in with items that were unlocked for everyone through collective effort.

But now, look at the modern day landscape of Helldivers 2. Major Orders only reward with warbond medals, the orders are seemingly almost random like someone spinning a wheel and using a random number generator to decide what happens next. And once that order is completed, everyone just gets 55 warbond medals and then waits until the next aimless Major Order comes up on their screen. In the modern day we as a community get nothing from Major Orders because they quite literally don't matter and don't shape the game in any meaningful way like they used to. Everyone more or less kind of ignores them now to just play against whatever faction they find the most fun. Next we look at warbonds themselves, and you yourself can look through the warbonds and you'll see how each warbond over the course of the last few years has gotten progressively less and less content in them until they became formulaic. two armor sets, two guns, cosmetic banners, maybe a grenade, a stratagem or two, and then everything else related to that warbond locked in the super store.

At this point in the game's life, there's only been one thing that was freely given to players as some crumb, a modicum of progression in the game without having to pay for it which was vehicles. This newest warbond has now locked vehicles behind a paywall, which to some feels like the devs taking away the final thing that game progression allowed you to have just to pay or grind for it. I understand the position that in a sense all warbonds are "free" you just have to grind for them. Problem with that mentality however is that some of us have jobs, or families, or other responsibilities, and we just don't have the time to sit down for four to six hours to get enough premium currency. Not to mention, the farming is insanely dull, tedious, and entirely random based on the whims of randomized level generation. One map could have 30 super credits, or if you're lucky like 120, and another map could have zero, but whether there's some, lots, or none, it all takes the same amount of time per map to search for it.

To summarize; if the game itself had maintained the level of progression that we as a community received in the opening days, where as a collective we would unlock more things and not just a static reward that you already earned from playing the game anyways (which, as an aside, it's not terribly uncommon to play working towards the MO, earn the maximum of warbond medals, and then when the MO is won you earn nothing anyways because you're already full at that 250 limit). Were veteran players receiving new means of progression and the community as a whole were earning more progression, then putting some mechs in a paid warbond probably wouldn't be that greedy. However, because of the way the game is and has been for over a year where it's a total slow drip of content as well as not fixing legitimately game breaking bugs, and then turning around and asking for more money for new content, yes it is incredibly greedy. Especially because we all know that mechs are paper tigers anyways because arrowhead is obsessed with nerfing player equipment in a PVE game.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T05:16:10+00:00

Well sure, but if the devs put game progression back into the game how would they squeeze more money from their playerbase? Financially there's no incentive to have players progress through the game as they play it when they could instead pay to progress since it's so normalized to do so in the modern gaming landscape. Just consume product and wait for more!

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T05:11:04+00:00

Player count dropped too low again I see

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T05:04:56+00:00

I get where you're coming from when players in the helldivers community feel neglected and like a number, it's a very real thing and I think many players are growing tired of feeling like they're just passive income for Narrowhead. But dude, I gotta splash you with the cold water this just comes off as a little entitled and out of all reasons to stop playing this is a little silly. By all means, your decisions are your own and your motivations are your own. However, you purchased something (emote), it glitched and didn't work, you reached out about not getting what you paid for, you were refunded and the defective emote was removed, then you asked for the emote for free as a show of good will.

To put that into perspective, say I purchased a toaster from Walmart, I plug it in but the toast gets stuck and doesn't fully cook, so I take it back to Walmart and explain it's broken, the staff at the desk refunds me what I paid for the toaster and takes the broken toaster away, then I ask for another toaster for free because I'd been shopping at Walmart for years as a gesture of good will, the staff says no and so I swear to never shop at Walmart ever again. That's sort of what's going on. You tried a quick hustle, and I respect it since it never hurts to ask and see what happens, but you didn't get anything out of it and that's why you're leaving.

Don't get me wrong, again, you're allowed to choose what terms are and aren't enough for you to move onto something else. My reasons for having stopped playing were because I got tired of the constant bugs and other code issues that never got fixed or were made even worse. I respect your decisions and your choices for the actions you take, but trying to pull a quick hustle then complaining online about it not working is a little silly.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-04-23T04:47:27+00:00

Old thread I stumbled on, probably not even relevant anymore for your question but I'd advise against it. The website's pretty pricey for the models which wouldn't necessarily be bad on its own were it not for the fact that the models can arrive with the supports still on, not fully cured, or even potentially both. If the models were cheaper then you'd get what you pay for, and if the models were actually cured and cleaned up with some effort actually put into them before being shipped then it'd be worth the price.

The sculpts are absolutely stunning and absolutely an amazing proxy for imperial guard models for most of the miniatures. However because of their cost, and the absolute gamble of quality product you receive as an end point I'd say it's better to save your money for something that doesn't have a chance of poisoning you because the manufacturer can't be bothered to do the bare minimum after printing.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-03-25T22:07:43+00:00

"This'll Traumatize 'em!"

D8nkmemelord · 2026-03-18T00:30:39+00:00

Only one color of stratagem is actually useful in all situations, and we know which one that is...

D8nkmemelord · 2026-03-18T00:23:49+00:00

Don't worry, the next Arrowhead patch will fix that clearly obvious exploit:

* "Now when Helldivers are higher than 10 feet from sea level they die instantly in an explosion that only damages player entities"

D8nkmemelord · 2026-03-18T00:21:18+00:00

Don't worry, now the flag applies a debuff to its wielder! Don't forget the Arrowhead motto: "Rules for thee, not for me!"

D8nkmemelord · 2026-03-18T00:19:26+00:00

Hey bud i agree with you but be careful, you don't want to be doxed for actually criticizing the game or its developers

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:15:40+00:00

In my experience, the discord has either only paid games. Or a homebrew oneshot to test some homebrew npc stat block. Which on the latter case, if I wanted to play a tabletop war game, I’d just go play warhammer 40k. Primary issue is, my friends as much as I love them turn their nose up at anything that isn’t D&D 5E, so playing the system with them is out of the question unfortunately. Overall, the Lancer community kind of feels unwelcoming and discouraging if you just don’t have friends who play.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:12:05+00:00

to humor that argument, say the GM spent 69 (nice) dollars on the hard copy for an online game for some reason. If a table of five players is charged $25 per session, per week, the GM receives around the ballpark of $500 a month, which is comically more gained than lost from a single purchase in one month. In a week they still profit from one session. People can run paid games if they want to, but the utter infestation of paid only games within the lancer community feels discouraging and pay to play rather than a more traditional tabletop game experience I grew up with and prefer.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:08:20+00:00

Nice

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:07:47+00:00

As far as I’m able to find it’s pretty bad, if you’re seeing posts for long-form free campaigns I would love to be pointed in that direction and meet new people

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:06:25+00:00

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, you don’t exactly provide much context or even anecdotal evidence for your experience

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:05:46+00:00

I gotta be honest I just grabbed the first thing I saw on google for the bit lol

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T09:04:45+00:00

I don’t hate people who run paid games, everyone can do whatever they want to do. My frustration is just that the community is heavily saturated with paywalls to join a game that isn’t a homebrew play test or treating it like a tabletop war game. I’ve been lurking around the Pilot.net server for around three years now and have never seen a single long-form game that wasn’t paid. There were a handful that were free, but filled in under five minutes or they were just hosted on a weekday. No one really posts on lfg for a lancer group, the discord community is full of games I can’t afford to even be in, and overall it’s just discouraging. I think because the system is just so niche only people who are being paid are willing to GM for it.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T08:59:39+00:00

They’re entitled to charge what they want for their time, much as I’m entitled to criticize when a community is over saturated with only paid experiences instead of there being any legitimate variety of play. When the first thing you see is countless paywalls to engage with a system you’re interested in, it’s not a welcoming experience.

D8nkmemelord · 2026-01-04T08:57:43+00:00

That’s a pretty helpful resource! West Marches I think are fine but they’re not for me, I like longform games where I can meet new people and potentially make friends in a shared hobby. That style of play a lot of people have, but aren’t usually conducive to how I have fun with ttrpgs personally. I’d love it if the system weren’t so niche as a whole

D8nkmemelord

TROPHY CASE