The fact that Helldivers 2 is a Sony-published game makes it all the more unsurprising that it has an official live-action adaptation in development. Not long ago, there was a time where video game adaptations were a dead-in-the-water proposition; however, adaptations have been fairly popular for a while now and PlayStation seems to be doling out its first-party games like hot cakes—Uncharted, The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Until Dawn, or Ghost of Tsushima, to name a handful. Therefore, the likelihood that other upcoming AAA titles and franchises will be considered with a cinematic future in mind is severely high.
Fortunately, that’s not an issue Helldivers ever would’ve had. Essentially a Starship Troopers-adjacent romp, Helldivers and its sequel are perhaps the perfect candidates for a live-action adaptation since their moment-to-moment action against unique robot, bug, and alien factions can and has made for spectacular science-fiction. Plus, even if a Helldivers movie’s story was paper-thin, it could easily entertain some of the most pivotal and profound events from recent memory in Helldivers 2.
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Helldivers 2: Why the Fate of Melee Weapons May Be Sealed
Melee weapons are officially a part of Helldivers 2, but beyond a fun gimmick here and there they may never amount to much more.
Helldivers 2’s Galactic War is a Perfect Framework for PlayStation’s Live-Action Adaptation
Helldivers 2 has had no shortage of grandiose tales to regale Super Earth with in the year-and-some-change since its launch. Indeed, most ordinary encounters on any planet will result in highly cinematic set pieces whether players extract successfully or not. How players interact with one another goes a long way in making trivial missions substantial and memorable, but some major orders in Helldivers 2 and the Galactic War-defining events enveloping them have laid a bountiful foundation for Sony’s adaptation to possibly take inspiration from, including:
- The fall of Malevelon Creek.
- The Illuminate suddenly invading an unoccupied corner of the galaxy near Super Earth and enslaving countless human citizens as soulless Voteless.
- Meridia becoming a black hole singularity that has now started barreling through planets toward Super Earth, beginning with Angel’s Venture.
Whether it deals with Terminids, Automatons, Illuminate, or a mixture of all three, the Helldivers movie has a deep well to draw from with so many notable wartime efforts to commemorate. It’s unknown how much the movie plans to run parallel with the game, much less its sequel, though considering the popularity Helldivers 2 still boasts it would probably be a missed opportunity for an adaptation not to touch on what’s made the IP so beloved in its contemporary era.
Funny enough, anyone who’s been playing Helldivers 2 since launch and has memories of its remarkable, game-changing moments can reflect on them like actual veterans in the Galactic War, and the movie emulating that by iterating on these events could be a phenomenal way to engage its democracy-loving audience.
Helldivers 2’s Hilarious Friendly Fire Can’t Be Dismissed in the Movie
If it has its priorities in order, Helldivers’ movie should turn out to be Helldivers 2’s opening cinematic stretched into a one-and-a-half to two-hour feature. A Helldivers movie obviously won’t have the charm that comes with player-to-player interaction, and yet it could emulate the same experiences with scripted dialogue and the inevitable woes that accompany the profuse and indiscriminate detonation of Hellbombs and Orbital nukes.
Players’ Helldivers have probably perished by their teammates’ hands as much as they have to Terminids, Automatons, and the Illuminate, and that’ll need to be represented faithfully somehow. The Helldivers movie focusing on a single protagonist may not allow that character to be vanquished so unceremoniously, but there will hopefully be many characters who, unable to Reinforce, would surely kick whoever threw the Eagle 500Kg Bomb
that killed them if they could.
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