Home News Helldivers 2 Board Game: First Impressions

Helldivers 2 Board Game: First Impressions

Author: Max May 12,2025

Last year, Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 became a standout hit in the multiplayer gaming world, captivating players with its mission to spread democracy through intense battles against aliens and robots. Now, following the successful release of their Elden Ring board game adaptation, Steamforged Games is bringing the fast-paced, frenetic action of Helldivers 2 to the tabletop. The board game is currently available for backing on Gamefound. IGN had the opportunity to try out a prototype and discuss the project with designers Jamie Perkins, Derek Funkhouser, and Nicholas Yu.

Helldivers 2: The Board Game

17 ImagesDevelopment on Helldivers 2: The Board Game started soon after the video game's launch, successfully capturing the essence of what made the original so engaging. The board game retains the tense firefights, chaotic surprises, and cooperative gameplay that fans love, while introducing unique tweaks to enhance the tabletop experience.

Helldivers 2 remains a cooperative, objective-based skirmish game where one to four players (solo players are encouraged to use two characters) work together to achieve mission objectives while fending off waves of enemies and unpredictable events. Each player assumes the role of a different Helldiver class—Heavy, Sniper, Pyro, and Captain in the demo—each with unique perks, action cards, and a one-use "Act of Valor" ability. Players equip themselves with primary, secondary, and support weapons, grenades, and three strategems, with recommended loadouts provided but customizable as players gain experience.

Gameplay unfolds on grid-based boards that expand as players explore, revealing sub-objectives and the locations of primary objectives, such as Terminid hatcheries in the prototype. As the mission progresses, increasingly difficult enemies spawn, and a round-limited mission timer adds to the game's frenetic and tense atmosphere.

The prototype focused on destroying a set number of Terminid hatcheries, but the final release will include multiple objectives. The base game features two main enemy factions, Terminids and robotic Automatons, each with 10 unit types. While not confirmed, there's a strong possibility that the Illuminate faction could be introduced via an expansion, given Steamforged's history with stretch goals.

A key aspect of the adaptation is how it handles the feeling of being overwhelmed. Unlike games like Zombicide, which rely on sheer numbers of weaker enemies, Helldivers 2: The Board Game opts for fewer but more challenging enemies, creating a more tactical and intense experience.

Turns involve players and enemies adding action cards to a shuffled pool, placed on an initiative tracker similar to Steamforged's Elden Ring game. Combat is resolved through dice rolls, with every four action cards triggering a random event that often disrupts plans, adding to the game's chaotic nature.

Combat mechanics are straightforward, with each weapon providing specific dice to roll, and damage determined by the total value. For every five points, a single wound is inflicted on an enemy, ensuring simplicity and focus on action rather than complex modifiers. Friendly fire is a risk, particularly with area attacks, adding strategic depth and the occasional need to sacrifice a teammate for the greater good.

A new feature, the 'Massed Fire' mechanic, is designed to replicate the cooperative shooting experience from the video game. As Nic explained, "In the video game, obviously, you're encouraged to work together as a team. You have a heavily armored enemy, you need to kind of flank around and shoot at the weak points if you don't have a support weapon to deal with it. But there wasn't a really good way to do that in a board game without going to a lot of facing and armor mechanics. So what we implemented was what we called 'massed fire,' so when anyone shoots at a target, if that's within range of another Helldiver's primary or secondary weapon, they can also fire at that time, and so you're kind of explicitly rewarded or incentivized to work as a group."

This mechanic not only encourages teamwork but also reduces player downtime, allowing more engagement during others' turns and more dice rolling, enhancing the overall experience.

Enemy attacks are straightforward, with fixed damage or effects causing players to draw wound cards. Three wounds result in character death, but players can respawn based on the chosen difficulty level, returning with a full loadout.

One element from the video game not included in the board game is the galactic war. The designers considered it but decided to focus on creating a unique experience, positioning the board game as a training simulation for Helldivers.

Jamie shared an amusing piece of lore: "We're positioning it effectively as a training simulation. So you would get this board game as a Helldiver as a training simulation to learn how to be a better Helldiver." This playful touch adds to the game's thematic immersion.

The designers, Nic, Jamie, and Derek, have focused on ensuring that despite the different medium, the board game feels distinctly like Helldivers. Nic stated, "We wanted to make sure that even though had different mechanics, it felt like Helldivers – like we want to have unexpected things that you have to deal with from turn to turn. We want to have strategems that could go awry and actually blow up your friends in addition to the enemies. The pool of reinforcements that dwindles as you go through the game and calling in strategems, those are things that feel uniquely Helldivers."

Derek added, "We knew we needed to keep the core loop of what Helldivers is with the mission objectives, and just being able to chase the shiny, right? We've got points of interest and sub-objectives and the objectives to uncover and find, while also having to deal with enemies that are, you know, trying to eat you."

Currently, the game's core mechanics are about 75-80% finalized, allowing room for adjustments based on community feedback and further development. Despite recent concerns about tariffs affecting the board gaming industry, Jamie assures that Steamforged Games will continue as planned, with adjustments made if necessary.

After playing the prototype, the systems in place, including random events and the Massed Fire mechanic, promise epic moments. However, the tactical focus with fewer, more powerful enemies might leave some fans wishing for more numerous weaker foes to mow down. Additionally, the static nature of enemy attacks could benefit from more varied outcomes determined by dice rolls to match the chaotic gameplay.

I'm excited to see what other surprises Steamforged Games has in store for Helldivers 2. The prototype has left me eager to explore new Helldiver classes, game types, and combinations with different enemies and biomes. My friends and I are already planning our next drop.