Helldivers 2 is undoubtedly 2024's biggest success – and major studios should be taking notes

Finding official numbers on Helldivers 2's budget is not easy - it almost never is when it comes to video game developments - but conservative industry estimates put it somewhere between 50 million and 100 million dollars across an 8 year development period. Sounds like a lot, but for context, Skull and Bones cost anywhere between two and sixteen times that number, depending on who you ask, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lost Warner Bros at least 200 mil, and the brief appearance of Concord would cost Sony more than 200 million - possibly a lot more.

The exact numbers behind all these games are hard to pin down, and in many cases that's probably not helped by the fact that they're not especially flattering. But what evidence we can find tells us that while Helldivers 2 almost certainly had a higher budget than its predecessor (PlayStation apparently doubled the budget of HD2 after seeing an impressive prototype), at most it's still barely touching the hem of many AAA budgets.

And yet it's been blowing its bigger siblings away. Despite the occasional ill-received update and one very stupid Sony sign-up sheet that was hastily reversed, Helldivers 2 is still the success story of the year – "the little engine that could", if that engine was bespattered with bloody chitin, shell casings and laser burns. It got the gold medal in our best games of 2024, took the internet by storm, and seemed to spend the months after its release going up and up in popularity, with memes about "Super Earth" and "Managed Democracy" everywhere you looked. Arrowhead went from a niche studio to a major industry player in mere weeks, a dramatic ascent that rivalled even Larian in the previous year. The sales were so unexpectedly high that before long Arrowhead was tearing up its own roadmap for more ambitious plans.

It's a success story few could mimic and most would envy, and the fact that its budget wasn't particularly remarkable is a good reason for larger businesses to sit up and take notice. Mainstream gaming is getting bigger and more bloated in terms of the costs involved, but it's not like the games are flourishing as a result - 2024 was full of high profile failures on both the critical and commercial side, each one of which nonetheless seemed to have the financing of a middling-sized city. In its humility, Helldivers 2 provides a lesson to be learned from.

"A game for everybody…

… Is a game for nobody." That's literally the motto of Arrowhead, something that stood out to me when I first saw it in Helldivers 2's first week, and frankly it feels even more significant in hindsight. The idea might sound glib or even a little snooty at first glance, but you can't argue with results. The studio absolutely committed to the gimmick of a Starship Troopers homage mechanically somewhere between Halo and Max Payne, and didn't compromise an inch along the way.

And people loved it. Yes, it's become a little more fashionable to hate on Helldivers 2 after it lost that initial momentum, but it was clearly impossible to sustain that energy forever and it's easy to forget how glorious those first few months were. It was also clear that Arrowhead had a very specific vision in mind, a moment-to-moment vision built on diving through explosions and screaming your way to victory in seemingly unwinnable scenarios. And every part of the game – from the movement to the weaponry to the music - is built on doubling down on that idea at the expense of all others.

To be blunt, HD2 is a very pure experience, undiluted by extraneous elements. But no extra elements also means that you don't have to pay for them. No campaign full of cutscenes, no meaningful base-building to speak of, no crafting, no character creation, no exploring, no elaborate hub cities. Helldivers 2 doesn't need these things, so it ignores them, and any money saved gets fed back into that all-important core, or updates that add new threats and armaments alike.

Pay to win?

This is where it might be illustrative to compare against another of 2024's sci-fi outings – Star Wars Outlaws. In Outlaws, you can explore worlds, drive speeders, shoot stormtroopers, engage in stealth, fight monsters, play cards, pick locks, solve puzzles, fly spaceships, engage in parkour, look for collectibles, hack computers, bet on alien horse racing, smuggle, craft, customise, juggle faction allegiance, develop RPG skills, and that's not even a comprehensive list.

It's plenty more than HD2, and yet… it somehow feels like less. Spread thin across all these elements, Outlaws felt diluted in precisely the way Helldivers 2 isn't, and even if there's an aspect of it you really like, it'll struggle to breathe among all the other qualities – every one of which came with its own high development costs.

For years now, big-budget games have been running towards the middle of the road and take refuge in already-proven concepts. They're too expensive to allow for risk, too expensive to sell anything less than a bajillion copies, too expensive to engage with novel ideas that might be polarising and reduce sales. As they get more pricey they have more to lose, so they get more risk-averse, but ironically that's what's so dangerous to their survival. Their constant mimicry and creative caution is leaving less of an impact on audiences and makes these games feel inessential. Suicide Squad, Concord, Outlaws - these were all following proven trends that were already overexposed to the point of meaninglessness.

Meanwhile, Helldivers 2 took a smaller cash supply and put it into something as pointed and focused as a laser beam. It even managed to engage with the boogieman of political satire without drawing too much ire, an impressive feat in its own right. And whaddaya know! A mid-range budget meant it could afford to get a little creative and risky, and it paid off in a big way. Spending less, while achieving greater profits and acclaim. What publisher could object to that?

Maybe you can already tell where Helldivers 2 landed on our best games of 2024 ranking