I like it when co-op games aren't bullshit. You know? I like it when they don't manufacture little interpersonal caltrops like divvying up collected resources per player just to transform your leisure time into a twisted and darwinian Squid Game. Deep Rock Galactic is the best comparison, philosophically. Everybody wins. Oh, fuck - didn't make it to the ship on time because your cat was shitting in a houseplant in your actual room, IRL? We got you: we'll fire you down from the station in a custom bullet and you can join in progress because why shouldn't you be able to. Arrowhead Studios got the memo.

I don't need my games to be mean to me just to feel alive. And anyway, Helldivers is plenty mean - it's just not mean in a stupid way. They situate the difficulty in a place out there, a place you can all see. It will absolutely test your knowledge of the true range of that orbital strike. Gabe will walk right in front of your gun - or your turret, or your grenade. It's not like Helldivers doesn't ask hard questions of players; they give you a supply of tokens, just as Mom might have done in decades past, and that is a shared resource that I, um, must often paw at in a greedy and frenzied way. And then they ask you to kill multiple building-sized quadruped bugs.

I feel like Sony's approach to exclusivity - multiple marquee studios kicking out tentpole shit, plus some light scale-thumbing to make themselves the go-to cross platform spot - is working, and the reason I say that is because it is. I've been absolutely delighted by the fact that they've been dropping games I really want on PC because apparently it's considered a kind of Switzerland in the Console War; I feel like I'm cheating a little. Generally I would say "do not touch lever/leave lever in place" because the lever is correct. But I don't think it applies to Helldivers, not if it's gonna explode off the line and is just now reliably something you can access. By all means, let it go for a bit. But long term? Let this thing live. It only multiplies your investment for a co-op game about community to get "reinforcements" at some point. My fanfiction involves a splinter world called Ultraterra that is brought into compliance via an in-game event, leading to a fresh surge of troops just when it's needed most. Embroider your own, obviously. But Arrowhead: call me.

(CW)TB out.