Is Helldivers 2 Worth It? What Players Say in 2026

Is Helldivers 2 worth it? The price and both scores

Checked November 10, 2026, on Steam's store page, its review histogram and its player-count API. The Eneba figure is the Global key from our store lookup the same day; check the region on the listing before you pay.

The two scores answer different questions. The 79% counts English-language reviews over nearly three years. The 28% counts reviews in every language from the last 30 days, a month that began with an anti-cheat swap. The two figures use different scopes, so read them as two separate gauges rather than one before-and-after.

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Why Steam says Mostly Negative: an anti-cheat story

On October 20, Arrowhead's Steam post said the game was "Transitioning from GameGuard to Easy Anti-Cheat today, October 20th". The studio's reason was that its GameGuard setup "wasn't as effective as it could have been". GamingOnLinux reported the switch the same day.

Steam's day-by-day histogram shows what happened next. On October 19 the game took 115 positive reviews and 19 negative. On October 20 it took 265 positive and 1,667 negative.

Chart: gamebrief.net. Source: Steam's review histogram (all languages, checked November 10, 2026)

It has not faded back to normal. From November 1 to 8 the daily figures add up to 621 positive and 1,662 negative reviews, so 27 in every 100 were thumbs up. On November 9 it was 72 and 296. Positive reviews also slipped, from 115 on October 19 to between 64 and 101 a day in that November stretch. Whatever the score says, 28,033 people were in the game on November 10, which is a big crowd for a game that two November 9 reviewers (below) say won't start for them. Our full timeline of the review bomb covers the dates and the mod fallout.

What the swap broke is specific. Arrowhead warned that "some mods, particularly the types that are affecting the experience of other players, may no longer function". FRVR reported that script mods now stop the game from booting, and that the team behind the Custom Galactic War mod called it "down for the foreseeable future". Arrowhead's post said hardware requirements did not change and that Steam Deck and Linux players are covered as before.

The reviews posted on November 9 show both sides. A player with 324.9 hours wrote that the last update "completely broke the game for MANY, weird errors with the Anti-Cheat". Another, with 781.9 hours, wrote that the game was saying "its unable to start correctly" and that he had "zero mods instaled" (sic). Against that, a Recommended review from a player with 4.2 hours, also November 9, reads "very fun to play with friends".

Our read: the recent score now tracks trust in a studio's anti-cheat and its communication, which tells a new buyer little about whether a four-player extraction is fun. It does tell you two things. If your fun came from script mods, that is gone. And if the game won't start on your machine, Arrowhead has a support article titled "My game is crashing after the switch to EAC!", so check it before you buy anything.

Do you have to pay for Super Credits?

Arrowhead's pages say you do not have to, and that decides whether $39.99 is the whole price. Arrowhead's currency page says Super Credits "can be purchased or discovered through gameplay", and that they buy Warbonds or Surplus Store armor. Helldivers Mobilize is the free standard Warbond. Premium Warbonds cost 1000 Super Credits, and the licensed ODST x Helldivers II Warbond costs 1500.

A player guide from August 2025 makes the same point from the floor: Fallout Plays says you can get every Warbond "via 100% gameplay only". The catch is in his next sentence: credits are "rare", found in bunkers and other loot-rich areas, so unlocking all of them takes a while. Arrowhead describes Warbond gear as "designed to spice up the player experience, not to overpower".

The $59.99 Super Citizen Edition adds an armor set, a cape, the MP-98 Knight weapon, Super Citizen status, a ship mini-game and a Premium Warbond Token. Our reading: the $20 difference is mostly cosmetic plus one 1000-credit Warbond, and credits are earnable in play. Arrowhead's help page also says that token cannot be spent on the 1500-credit ODST Warbond.

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Playing alone: SEAF helps, Arrowhead still says co-op

Arrowhead's own FAQ is blunt. The game is "designed as co-op experience, so you may have difficulty completing higher level content on your own".

Screenshot: Steam store page (Arrowhead Game Studios / PlayStation Publishing)

Since update 7.0.0 on August 12, SEAF troops can appear as a planet modifier, fighting beside you. Creative Director Mikael Eriksson later wrote that Arrowhead wanted to give solo players and understaffed squads "a genuine lifeline" without breaking "the four-Helldiver core experience".

Before SEAF, the picture was rougher. Streamer theRadBrad's launch-week solo run on PS5 (February 10, 2024) includes a stretch where he says he can see this is "a lot easier with uh friends" and that you "can kind of get overrun in this game pretty easily". That is a console run from two years ago, so read it as a floor.

Our reading: SEAF is a modifier that "can now appear", not a partner on every mission, and the studio's own wording is co-op first, so the solo picture is the weak spot in what we read.

What the last two updates change for a new buyer

Update 7.0.0 on August 12 added a new Illuminate biome, the Crusher and Wretch enemies, SEAF support and a rank cap lifted to level 300. A new buyer need not fear the 300. On August 6 Arrowhead wrote that the weapons, stratagems and gear that matter for a loadout "unlock by around level 25".

Eriksson admitted that the update's launch was bumpy: "Launch stability was too patchy", and it took two follow-up patches.

Screenshot: Steam store page (Arrowhead Game Studios / PlayStation Publishing)

The newest content is the November 3 update. It adds the Noxious strain of Terminids, whose venom you can cure with stims, and bug caves on more biomes. The Noxious Spewer's web spit costs you the ability to sprint after one hit. For a fresh squad that means two habits from the first hour: keep a stim for whoever wanders ahead, and bring volume weapons such as shotguns, flamethrowers or grenades against the fast ones.

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Install size and requirements

Steam's minimum is a Windows 10 PC with an Intel Core i7-4790K or Ryzen 5 1500X, 8 GB of RAM and a GTX 1050 Ti or RX 470. The recommended line is an i7-9700K or Ryzen 7 3700X, 16 GB and an RTX 2060 or RX 6600XT, with an SSD.

Steam's store page lists 135 GB for the minimum build and 40 GB for the recommended one, which can't both be right. Arrowhead's own minimum requirements page, updated October 25, says 100 GB for both. Arrowhead said in March that it would remove the "large" build from Steam with the March 17 patch. Leave a lot of room anyway.

If you are in the UK, check first: GamingOnLinux reported on October 20 that the game was still unavailable there on Steam, with no store page visible, after a back-end problem in mid September.

What players say, and what price fits

The November 9 reviews quoted above split two ways: the 324.9-hour and 781.9-hour players report errors and a game that will not start (the second says he had "zero mods instaled"), while the 4.2-hour player wrote "very fun to play with friends". Our reading: the recent score tracks trust in the anti-cheat swap more than the four-player loop, and Arrowhead's own FAQ describes the game as co-op first. Our timeline of the review bomb has the dates.

On price, Steam asks $39.99 and the Global Steam key on Eneba was $25.70 on November 10, so check the region on the listing before you pay. Our reading: those two figures, plus the $59.99 Super Citizen Edition that adds mostly cosmetics, are what to set against your squad size and mod setup. We cannot tell you a discount will arrive; our Steam sale calendar lists the dates of the next events.

Tell the group one thing before the first drop. Fallout Plays points out that samples are shared by the whole squad, so "don't argue about who gets to extract with them". The same video notes you can bring at most four stratagems on a mission, so each player can pick a different four instead of all four bringing the same ones.

If four-player co-op is the goal, our other co-op pages cover the shelf. Risk of Rain 2 handles four players with revives, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core rewards squad roles, and Mycopunk at 1.0 is a cheaper shooter option. Far Far West takes one to four players, and October's Next Fest co-op demos are free to try. For a longer list, see best indie co-op games.

What we couldn't confirm

We found no Arrowhead statement on the recent review score, so we don't know if the studio plans to change anything. We don't know how many players can't launch the game, only that Arrowhead has a crash article and some reviewers say so. We could not confirm the real install size or why the store page lists two. We did not test Xbox or cloud play, so nothing here covers them. The Eneba price moves, and we did not play the game for this piece: it is built from Steam, Arrowhead's posts and support pages, and the player reviews and videos linked above.

References

1. HELLDIVERS 2 on Steam, Arrowhead Game Studios and PlayStation Publishing
2. Changing anti-cheat in HELLDIVERS 2, Arrowhead on Steam
3. Devoid of Liberty: 7.0.0, Arrowhead on Steam
4. Launching Devoid of Liberty: A Look Back, Arrowhead on Steam
5. HELLDIVERS 2 Is Raising the Level Cap to 300, Arrowhead on Steam
6. New poisonous Terminid types, bug caves, Arrowhead on Steam
7. Currencies and FAQ, Arrowhead Player Support
8. Helldivers 2 switches over from GameGuard to Easy Anti-Cheat, GamingOnLinux
9. Helldivers 2 gets hit by yet another review bomb, FRVR