‘Helldivers 2’ success leads to ‘Starship Troopers’ resurgence

20 February, 2024

Helldivers 2. Credit: Arrowhead Game Studios.

It looks like the response to Helldivers 2 has seen Starship Troopers rush up the charts to become the 19th most popular movie online, per today’s ranking of Television Stats (February 20).

A closer look at the surge of popularity for Starship Troopers on Television Stats’ graph shows that its rise coincided with February 15, which was one week after Helldivers 2 hit PC and PS5.

The increase caught the eye of creative director Johann Pilestedt, who called it “incredible”. Starship Troopers and Helldivers 2 share a similarly satirical characterisation of the military action and expansion of humanity into space in their respective storylines.

Starship Troopers, based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein, is set in the 23rd century and sees the fictional United Citizen Federation only bestow citizenship and rights to those who serve in the military eradicating alien “Arachnids”.

On the other hand, Helldivers 2 relays to the player that the future Super Earth is organised through a “managed democracy” where the outcome of elections are much more predictable. Super Earth is under threat by Automations and Terminids, and the human soldiers must stop at nothing to safeguard their planet and its “freedom”.

Owing to the significant success of Helldivers 2, which has ironically incurred a lot of server issues for the game, it appears that players are putting two and two together and enjoying the sci-fi satire that was the inspiration for their current go-to game.

An in-game Easter egg also suggests that a third enemy will arrive in the game, returning from the original Helldivers. The Illuminate has been referenced in a new ship message but there are no details on when this faction would come to the shooter at this point.

In other gaming news, Neonhive has become Neonhive Games with its newest foray into publishing, supporting indies Harvest Hunt and Slopecrashers in their launch later this year.

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