Helldivers 2 Is the Best Halo Game in Over a Decade

Helldivers 2 is the best Halo game we’ve had in over a decade, and has shown more respect for the franchise than Xbox has in the last few years.

I haven’t played Helldivers 2 as much as I’d have liked to since it launched. Nowadays I’m all about my singleplayer games though I do often jump online for some Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2, Rainbow Six Siege, or Helldivers 2 when something cool gets added.

Recently I’ve spent a lot more time on the game following its boost in player numbers thanks to its launch on Xbox. To coincide with this launch it also collaborated with Halo and brought both weapons and armour from Halo 3: ODST for our Helldivers to use.

After suiting up, dropping into New Alexandria and logging several hours on its missions it’s made me realise how disappointing the last decade has been for new Halo games, and how much better this simple collaboration feels in comparison.

Halo is such a vast universe that I’m honestly surprised there are so few spin-offs for it. You’ve got real-time strategy games like Halo Wars and then Halo 3: ODST but that’s about it. It feels like there are so many more stories and perspectives to explore, even more thanks to the deeper lore introduced through Halo Studios’ games, yet we never see it.

Playing Helldivers 2 with the ODST skins feels like an alternate universe where the beloved Firefight mode got a fully-fledged release, or the sequel to Halo 3: ODST we’ve always wanted.

Recent mods for Halo: The Master Chief Collection introduced a Flood mode to Halo 3 where you play as a normal marine with no protection, and space battles between UNSC and Covenant ships on Halo: Reach. That’s the kind of stuff that the Halo series could be doing, rather than charge extortionate prices for colours and armour sets in Halo: Infinite.

Helldivers 2 somehow scratches that itch for a different Halo game and the level of care and detail that’s been put into the collaboration by Arrowhead Studios deserves nothing but praise. Even the M90 shotgun’s discarded shells have a little picture of a hippo on them, which is what they had in Halo 3. It’s such an obscure detail that could have easily been ignored yet it wasn’t.

There’s a well of untapped potential for Halo but it feels like Xbox has given up on what was its console-selling franchise. There’s always hope of redemption and the rumoured reboot/remake of Halo: Combat Evolved sounds promising, but at the time of writing Halo is being done better in completely different games.