If you're worried that the Helldivers 2 board game is a hasty cash-in, the developers have something they'd like to say: not on your life, pal. This ode to Super Earth and interstellar bugs who just don't know when to quit has been made by fans, for fans. The aim? For it to be a shotgun barrage of democracy straight to the face, just like its inspiration.
"For the people who aren't sure, or are on the fence, just know that this game was made by people who really love Helldivers, who play Helldivers, and want to make sure that this is the best Helldivers board game adaptation it can possibly be," designer Nicholas Yu tells me when we catch up ahead of the Helldivers 2 board game crowdfunding campaign.
"We really wanted to lean into the cooperative chaos of the video game," designer Derek Funkhouser adds. "That's a really difficult premise to port over to a tabletop experience in a physical medium, but we really think we are able to do that."
A nice cup of LIBER-TEA
Announced by surprise earlier this year with the suddenness of a Terminid counter-attack, Helldivers 2: The Board Game has earned over £980,000 (and counting) on Gamefound after just a few days. That's a lot of faith in a project. However, this isn't the team's first rodeo. It's being developed by Steamforged Games in association with Arrowhead, the studio behind the video game. If you're familiar with the world of tabletop gaming and the best board games, that name should sound familiar. Steamforged has previous when it comes to adaptations. Actually, that number is pushing double figures; its library includes everything from Monster Hunter World board games to Resident Evil.
However, that doesn't mean sending Helldivers to the tabletop was easy.
"We are trying to be as faithful as we can, to replicate the core essence of the experience, of what's going on with that video game, and bring it to the tabletop," Steamforged's Jamie Perkins says, "[but] it's super important for us not to just do a one-for-one exact translation. There are different things you can do in a video game that you can't do in a board game. But as long as you can get the essence of what the players are feeling when they're playing that video game… we can make a lot of people happy."
The taste of freedom
It's a fair point. Tabletop games are a lot more methodical and less frantic by necessity, so certain elements from Helldivers won't be much fun if they're translated straight from the screen. A good example would be the early stages of each match, where you call in supplies. Because admin at the start of a session before you get going isn't the most thrilling way to spend your time, the developers chose to give you pre-made Helldivers you could plug into any difficulty mode or scenario. That way, you're getting right into the action from the word go, and, as Perkins notes, it helps with "enhancing replayability of that single session experience."
That's one of the major differences between the Helldivers 2 board game and previous Steamforged adaptations; it isn't a campaign game. Rather than using a legacy system that'll track your progress over the course of weeks or months, this emphasizes one-off sessions you can revisit time and again. In addition, your character is much more… well, expendable. Any sacrifice is worthwhile in the name of defending Super Earth, after all, and being killed in action is likely to be a fixture of your games.
Especially thanks to the sheer volume of foes you'll locking horns (or mandibles) with. A vast array of Terminids are represented here by incredibly detailed miniatures of the kind Steamforged is known for, and judging by what the three designers told me during our chat, that's not all. Keep an eye on those stretch goals…
I'll be posting my hands-on thoughts of the game next week, so keep an eye out for that, too. Until then, I suppose we better prepare to drop.
Want some recommendations of what to play next? Don't miss the best adult board games, or the best 2-player board games.
