The tools Super Earth employs in the ongoing battle for managed democracy largely boil down to enormous explosions carpeting a soon-to-be-liberated planet inHelldivers 2. Orbital Cannon stratagems such as theOrbital 380Mm He Barrageand Hangar stratagems such as theEagle 500Kg Bombremain uncontested in their ubiquity for that reason alone. But, to get the job done inHelldivers 2, players often need to rely on more subversive means of tackling Terminids and Automatons when they’re met with particular circumstances or objectives.
Thankfully, a more technical loadout enables niche tools at players’ disposal: incendiaries, static fields and electricity, or caustic chemicals. Incendiaries are explosive-adjacent regarding how cinematic they can be when administered generously, and they’ve also been represented positively inHelldivers 2’s popular Orbital Napalm Barrage. The fire motif treatment inHelldivers 2had its heyday via the Freedom’s Flame Premium Warbond as well. That said, while more weapons or items could be added in the future to furnish incendiaries further, a gear set inspired byStar Wars Battlefront 2’s General Grievouswould turn flickering embers into a raging conflagration.
General Grievous’ Shattered Armor Legendary Skin is a High Point of Star Wars Battlefront 2 Cosmetics
Star Wars Battlefronthas been an interesting point of comparison forHelldivers 2since the latter was announced, and not without good reason. The excitement and bombast of any miscellaneousHelldivers 2match are surely comparable to any imaginable battle ensuing duringStar Wars’ Clone Wars, and it’s been easy to ponder what aStar Wars Battlefrontentry could look like if it took onHelldivers 2’s four-player team sweeping a planet to rid it of its hostile enemies.
Four clone troopers surveying a planet and engaging in tense blaster bolt exchanges with clankers would emulate Super Earth’s struggle to spread managed democracy across Automaton-laden systems, for example, and could learn a lot fromHelldivers 2’s glorious PvE.
Still,Helldivers 2could benefit from drawing influences fromStar Wars Battlefrontand vice versa, even if it’s only in terms of an incredibly specific skin belonging exclusively to a Separatist military strategist. Not all skins inStar Wars Battlefront 2are equally beloved, but General Grievous’ charred, smoldering Legendary skin, dubbed “Shattered Armor,” was arguably his best. The detail that makes Grievous’ Shattered skin so unique is that it features a burnt crispiness with embers still flaking from the damage done to the cyborg droid as if he had freshly emerged from a fire.
Helldivers 2’s Gear is Ready to Take the Next Natural Step
Helldivers 2features armor and gear setsrelated to incendiaries, static and electricity, and caustic gasses, but they’re oriented around resistances to those elements. Armor such as the I-09 Heatseeker, AF-50 Noxious Ranger, or EX-16 Prototype 16 bear the appearance of outfits soldiers would don if they were knowingly wading into such natural or unnatural hazards and even serve as a boon if players happen to come across fire tornadoes or random, inclement environments that their suits better prepare them for.
Rather, a simple twist on this premise could have armor representing the wear and tear of perilous disasters, much less stratagems players dive with and brandish wildly with other teammates around. It’d be fantastic to have a hazmat suit eroded by caustic chemicals, for instance, or a suit perpetually fried by flammables mimicking General Grievous’ Legendary skin.
Either way, armor’s limitations are sky-high, and it’ll be interesting to see what aesthetics are implemented inHelldivers 2’s future. Plus, for how often players are slain by such elements, typically viahilarious friendly fire, it wouldn’t be out of place at all if each Helldiver looked like they’d been killed a hundred times being bathed alive in flame.
