Recent reviews by Classic MusDANG

The economy side of the game is neat, if a little disappointing in how some of the goods are handled such as different weapon types.

The most glaring issue though remains the abysmal war system. If you are hoping to see any kind of interesting strategy, you will be sorely disappointed. It's as if they took the worst aspects of the Hearts of Iron IV frontline system and took out any aspect of player control besides GO/STOP (with a few options in that vein tied to RNG traits).

The only reason I have any time in this game is because my friends all play it, and that's really the only way for it to be engaging (assuming you have solid mods to fix some of the terrible diplomatic mechanics).

UPDATED REVIEW as of 5/6/2024:

It would seem after massive backlash Sony has backed down from their utterly anti-consumer plans and reversed course on requiring PSN accounts to play Helldivers 2. With that, this review can go to being positive. However, I will be leaving the old review as a reminder to what Sony attempted to do, should they ever try again, which, I personally suspect they will.

With that, the game is great fun - I doubt you need my review to convince you further that it's worth getting.


Original Review 5/5/2024:

While Arrowhead does deserve some of the blame, as by their own admission they had failed to communicate that this was always going to be the case, the blame ultimately lies on Sony as their publisher for both A) not communicating this and B) for requiring PSN accounts in the first place.

Sony as a company has a horrible track record with securing users' personal data, and is not available in many countries, meaning there is an arbitrary block on who is allowed to play, given the game has functioned without the need for a PSN account for months.

More seriously, the actions taken by Sony in this situation could be considered stock manipulation, as the timing of the requirements kicking in and their next earnings call are spaced perfectly to allow them to tell their shareholders that their properties are selling very well, despite the fact that many of the buyers are now requesting refunds due to being unable to play the game.

At the risk of sounding a bit silly, we as players are once again being forced to confront the results of corporate greed head-on, and I urge everyone in the community to make their voices heard as loudly and widely as possible to try and stop the march of enshittification brought on by capitalist greed.

Not quite as established nor as variety filled as Wargame: Red Dragon, but the quality of life improvements and active development are rapidly shaping WARNO up to be a worthy successor (or, at least, worthy bastard child of Steel Division and Wargame). The current price tag might be a bit steep for the amount of content currently available (especially for singleplayer-minded folks), but give it a bit of sale or the release of the Army General mode and I'd say its worth a buy for any fans of the RTS genre.

I've got a lot of time in this game seeing as how I played way back in 2013, and I must say the game has gotten better insofar as new and interesting vehicles being added from different eras over the standard "ww2 tank battle" games that exist, but that's come along with an ever-increasing descent into garbage. The economic system is a joke, with the cost to repair many vehicles far outstripping their earning potential (maybe as a way to get people to spend real money on in-game currency?) as you progress, making the entire line of "free to play" a complete and utter lie.

At the same time, the devs outright ignore most feedback and actively censor any criticism (both valid and not) with blanket bans or disabling of chats (go look at most every community post or official video and see how open to comments they are...not really a sign of a positive company-community interaction). Heck, when they made a big show of "gathering player feedback" on a slew of economic changes a while back, they offered the community a number of choices, with none of them being particularly great, and when they implemented the changes they tacked on a massive nerf to earnings overall and had the audacity to ask "why doesn't the community like the changes? There was a vote!"

Add in the bog standard spamming of premium vehicles that cost as much as AAA titles and the nerfs that come after a few updates to "encourage" people to buy the next one that practically all "free to play" games have these days and its no wonder why so many players will talk about how they want a similar game to release so they can ditch War Thunder for good.

And to any new players thinking of coming in...just don't. Once you get to where the interesting vehicles are the game becomes a nightmare to try and keep up with for non-premium players. Unless you're an old player with a lot of premiums and skills built up over the years it flat out is not worth it: Gaijin Entertainment doesn't give a damn about you or their game.


EDIT as of 08/18/2023: Gaijin, likely after the massive amount of backlash against the aforementioned problems, have introduced numerous QoL changes that the playerbase voted on. It is definitely a step in the right direction, but we as consumers and players have to remain vigilant as Gaijin has backtracked before.

EDIT as of 12/22/2023: As per my previous call to remain vigilant, it seems as though Gaijin, despite making positive changes in how the game works, is digging in its heels with dubious justifications. As such, it is up to us as consumers to do whatever we can to correct their behavior. Until they give reasonable justification for their balancing decisions and release their utterly authoritarian enforcement against genuine criticisms of the game on their forums, I cannot in good conscience recommend the game to new players.

Its a fun game to mess around with friends on, but the constant issue of crashing after a few battles in the conquest mode kills pretty much any enjoyment that could be had on what I'd consider a very important gamemode.

Great game; totally worth the buy!