One of the biggest Xbox game releases of the summer is imminent, and it’s not coming from Microsoft’s first-party developers. No, I’m talking about Helldivers 2 — the award-winning, fan-favorite 2024 co-op shooter that’s finally coming to Xbox.
Notably, it’s the first-ever PlayStation-published title to come to Microsoft’s platform.
Much like Forza Horizon 5 on PS5, Helldivers 2 is expected to absolutely blow up on Xbox. That means thousands upon thousands of new recruits joining up to do their part against Super Earth’s sworn enemies.
As a veteran diver with over 500 hours of experience playing on PC, I thought I might offer some valuable tips for those dropping into battle for the first time.
Thus, without further ado, here are seven must-know tips, tricks, and suggestions for every new player jumping into Helldivers 2 on Xbox (or any other platform, really). Keep these in mind as you play, and you’ll see great success in no time.
7. Be a team player, it pays off!
This tip doesn’t refer to any one part of Helldivers 2’s gameplay in particular. Rather, it’s a mindset, and one that’s extremely important to get into if you intend on playing with friends or players in matchmaking. And while it may seem like an obvious thing to highlight for a co-op shooter, you’d be surprised how many longtime divers I still see playing like they’re a lone wolf.
You can ping specific objectives and enemies by aiming at them and tapping R1, bringing them to your team’s attention. You can also hold R1 down to open up a communication wheel, and then the right thumbstick to select messages of thanks or apologies, requests for supplies, suggestions to follow or hold position, and more.
Similarly, with the Share button, D-pad, and X button, you can also open your map, move your cursor around, and place down a waypoint for the team to follow.
There’s general teamplay etiquette in moment-to-moment gameplay to consider, too, and unspoken rules you should know. If you have a full squad of four and resupply is called down, don’t take multiple ammo boxes for yourself. Pay attention to where teammates are shooting and don’t cross their field of fire, or go prone and crawl if you have to. Be mindful of your own aim, and avoid throwing dangerous stratagems near an ally’s position.
6. Fight each enemy faction differently
Helldivers 2’s three enemy factions — the Terminid “bugs,” the Automaton “bots,” and the Illuminate “squids” — are each very distinct and different from one another. I’ll give you a broad overview of each to give you an idea of what to expect, along with some suggestions on how to best approach fighting each one.
The Terminids are all about swarming with overwhelming numbers, forcing you to constantly stay on the move and kite their hordes to stay out of their melee range. Generally, most of the bugs are poorly armored and easy to cut down with primary weapons or fast-firing support weapons like the Stalwart or Machine Gun (though some require anti-tank), but not staying in any one place for long is crucial.
The Automatons, meanwhile, are the exact opposite — far fewer in overall number, but equipped with ranged laser weaponry and led by heavily-armored infantry, tanks, and walkers. Fighting from cover as often as you can is the key to success against the bots, as is precise aim to target their vulnerable heads and plenty of heavy anti-tank ordnance.
Finally, there’s the Illuminate, which is the most dynamic force of the three. Fighting them tends to feel like a combination of both bugs and bots, with ranged enemies like Elevated Overseers and War of the Worlds-like Harvester walkers forcing you into cover that’s then assaulted by crowds of shambling Voteless zombies and tanky Fleshmob abominations that threaten to flush you out of it.
This delicate balance of moving between cover and open ground is best enforced with as much crowd control as you can get, as outside of Harvesters, no Illuminate troops have any noteworthy armor at all to deal with.
5. Keep your head on a swivel
Situational awareness is another huge part of the Helldivers 2 experience, as enemy patrols can come across your position from any direction.
Therefore, you should constantly take advantage of Helldivers 2’s third-person perspective and look around you and your allies, quickly either eliminating groups of enemies you see, positioning yourselves to avoid them, or gauging if you should retreat or advance in a fight.
It’s hard to know what the right calls to make are when you lack the intel needed to make them, after all, so don’t underestimate the value of scouting.
Another benefit to keeping your head on a swivel is that you’ll likely spot side objectives to ping, many of which aren’t shown to you on your map at the start of a mission. Some of these, such as anti-air SAM sites and SEAF artillery cannons, can even give you tactical options and advantages.
Training a keen eye will also help you spot samples — upgrade materials you’ll need to upgrade your stratagems between missions — as you explore points of interest and enemy-held areas.
4. Dive, dive, dive!
Here’s a simple one, but one that I guarantee you will save your life. By double-tapping the B button, you can send your Helldiver diving to the ground in the direction they’re moving at the time (forward, if they’re standing still). This immediately puts them into the prone position, though you can quickly get up again and move as you normally would.
This simple maneuver, timed properly to avoid deadly incoming threats, is the single strongest defensive move you have, and will get you out of situations you wouldn’t survive by just trying to sprint away. Even if you don’t avoid damage completely or get ragdolled, there’s a very good chance you’ll survive with a large portion of your health remaining.
Diving into cover is also a very effective strategy against the bots in particular, as anything you can do to put something solid between you and their laser blasts faster is a good thing. Once in cover, you can prone or crouch to peek over the top of it with your weapons and fight much more safely.
3. Choose loadouts and stratagems wisely
While I strongly encourage you to avoid being pressured by any kind of community-set “meta” and to simply use the armors, weapons, and stratagems you think look fun, you should try and put together good individual and team-wide loadouts if you want to get better at Helldivers 2.
As a general rule of thumb, you and your teammates should use a mix of crowd control and anti-tank if you’re fighting bugs, loadouts focused on dealing with heavy armor if facing bots, and gear ideal for thinning out hordes of enemies when battling the Illuminate.
In terms of armor, light and medium are best for the Terminids, with heavy being a poor choice due to how much it limits your mobility with its speed and stamina penalties. Heavy is far stronger on the bot front since you’ll be fighting stationary in cover often, however. All three work well against the Illuminate.
2. Learn and target enemy weak spots
An aspect of Helldivers 2’s action that gives it some strategic depth is the presence of enemy weak spots. Indeed, a large portion of the game’s alien menaces have parts of their bodies where they’re either less armored or take more damage.
Armored Automaton Devastators can be killed with just a headshot or two by most primary weapons, for example. Meanwhile, Terminid Chargers and Bile Titans die with one anti-tank rocket to their heads, and Illuminate Fleshmobs fall if you shoot all the “faces” on their grotesque forms.
Ultimately, figuring out where they are for each foe is a trial-and-error process, but once you understand what each enemy’s weakness is, you’ll be able to fight them much more effectively. There are community guides to look up about them, too, and if you ask players in-game, most divers are happy to share what they know.
1. Customize your weapons to maximize performance
In addition to the broader customization you can perform by unlocking and equipping different attachments between missions, you can also tweak aspects of a weapon’s performance in the middle of battle, too.
To do this, hold down the A button, which will then bring up a menu you can make selections on. The options available to you will vary depending on the weapon in your hands and the attachments you’ve chosen for it, but scope zoom/distance, fire rate, a flashlight toggle, and firing modes are all common.
Scope zoom is a particularly useful thing to maximize if you’re sniping, while speeding up or slowing down your fire rate is worth doing with machine guns to balance uptime with killing power.
#Helldivers #tips #Xbox #players #veteran
