Do People Still Not Realize That 'Helldivers 2' Is A Parody Of Authoritarianism?

The game does what the Starship Troopers movie tried to do, only much better.

The conversation surrounding Helldivers 2 has been a curious one, and I’m still a bit perplexed at what appears to be a lot of people simply not getting the joke. In the space-shooter, you play as the bad guys. It’s basically the movie version of Starship Troopers as a live-service video game, and much more obviously satire than Paul Verhoeven’s campy, misunderstood movie.¹

In the game, you are from Super Earth which is now a united planet under a “managed democracy”—an authoritarian state with the trappings of democracy and plenty of propaganda to make its citizens believe they’re free, when the opposite is very clearly the case. Like Starship Troopers, the game is not only satirizing an authoritarian state, but the kind of nationalism and overbearing patriotism we see even in the US so often. Recall the build up to the war in Iraq. The calls to “spread democracy” and the foolish rush to war.

Helldivers floods players with this jingoistic nonsense at every turn. There is a Ministry Of Truth. There are Democracy Officers on ships to ensure that the troops are kept ideologically in line, uttering Orwellian lines like “There is but one assured path to peace . . . And that path is war!” or “Though we are the most powerful fighting force the universe has ever seen, we are naught but humble servants before Managed Democracy.”

And here’s the game’s entry on how voting works on Super Earth:

"Mankind has improved upon the old concept of Democracy. Utilizing computer aided voting software, citizens are asked to answer several questions, and the outcome of their vote is decided upon by the computer. This removes the uncertainty that existed in the old systems where voters didn't understand fully what they were voting for, giving us Managed Democracy."

Clearly, this does not actually mean that an Artificial Intelligence is making the most accurate choice on voters’ behalfs. It means that voting—the central tenet of democracy—is just an illusion. (An NPC at one point exclaims something to the effect of “I can’t wait to be told who to vote for!”) Elections are for show only. Everything is rigged. Adding up the pieces, you have what is effectively an imperialistic, militaristic, fascistic state under the guise of “managed democracy.” This type of regime and gungho nationalism is what Helldivers is parodying. It’s quite brilliant, and it seems to be going over a lot of people’s heads, including the head of the YouTuber known as The Critical Drinker, who posted this bizarre tweet recently, trying to pick a fight with IGN:

It seems that Will Jordan—the Drinker’s real name—thinks that IGN is mad that the game is succeeding because it’s about fascism . . . maybe? Does he think the game is promoting “Managed Democracy” rather than spoofing it? The IGN review came out in February, so I’m not sure how IGN could be spinning anything now. In it, Will Borger writes (glowingly):

I love the way it delivers little pieces of lore through dialogue and funny propaganda videos broadcast on your Super Destroyer: did you know that the bugs were being farmed as fuel before they managed to escape, which is why they’re attacking Super Earth? Or that the Automatons were previously enslaved? I mean, for the love of God, members of the Super Earth military literally wear capes! Leaving a bad review of military hardware is treason! We might be the baddies!

So, yeah, you’re fascists, but it’s all so intentionally over the top that it’s impossible not to smile. Helldivers 2 has my regular squad and I shouting things like “Looks like those robots could use some freedom” and “How about a nice cup of Liber-tea?!” while we’re playing. I can’t stop laughing whenever my Helldiver’s limb is damaged and they scream “Sweet Liberty! My ARM!”, or an airstrike turns them into nothing but a bloody torso wearing a cape, or when they start laughing maniacally when I empty an entire machinegun clip in one go.

It seems to me that the problem here is that the Drinker, rather than IGN’s reviewer, isn’t in on the joke. He’s missed it quite badly. And he’s not alone. The game is not trying to promote the system of government Super Earth has foisted upon its citizens, it’s satirizing “Managed Democracy” with all its ludicrous propaganda and Orwellian practices. The harder a state tries to convince you you’re free, the less likely it is you actually are. “The government doth protest too much, methinks.”

The developers must be amused by the sheer number of people who don’t seem to get this. On Twitter, Arrowhead Games CEO Johan Pilestedt posted this in response to a thread about the game’s politics going over so many gamers’ heads.

“Mmm... It's often a concern when doing satire like this; that the people who are aligned with the satirical views do not get it,” Pilestedt tweeted. “My belief is that while it might happen, you (I) as the creator will have to continue to push the satire to the point of dissonance.”

That it is not already at the point of dissonance boggles my mind. It bugs me (heh) that The Critical Drinker would take such an obtuse stance on the game. He’s constantly talking about “The Message”—aka, the social justice / woke politics that are being inserted into movies, shows and games etc—but there is another “Message” and it’s what he’s doing right here. This other “Message” is the anti-woke side’s version. When you no longer trade in nuance and thoughtful discourse and you just push “go woke go broke” bullshit and “Disney bad” and “game journalists bad” and blah blah blah you become just as tiresome as the people overdoing it with the social justice crap. There’s no room for critical thinking when everything is just a culture war whipping post to pillory your perceived enemies with.

I sometimes agree with the Drinker’s takes and I sometimes disagree. I am a lefty who often critiques the left; he is a conservative. We may find similar things annoying, but my problem with The Message is in its execution rather than its intent. He’s certainly pointed out some big flaws with modern movies, but he’s boxed himself into a sort of reactionary, right-wing space and while some of his takes have been more nuanced, this tweet is a clear example of the way drinking too much of your own Kool-Aid (or whiskey) can make you blind to your own biases. There’s a kind of audience capture at work as well, I suspect. It’s far more lucrative to take extreme stances than be reasonable. “There is but one assured path to peace . . . And that path is war” after all.

I also think he’s wrong about Reacher Season 2, but right about Shogun. And in a sane world, we could stop placing everyone into their little ideological prisons, or “other” statuses and just disagree amicably, but that’s a ship long out to sea. To do that, we’d have to listen to one another. And it looks like the Drinker didn’t even bother to read the review he so sneeringly dismissed before firing a shot across the bow. But hey, look at all those likes! Look at all that engagement. I’m sure someone will say something about me getting “ratioed” because Drinker’s tweet will be far, far more popular than mine. Appeals to popularity are one of the most common fallacies we encounter on social media. It’s pretty much designed with that in mind. And that’s a shame, it really is. We are all dragged down into the dirt.

Sniping at someone’s review without giving it a fair shake is what we refer to in the business as “a dick move.” Not a good look, or a good approach to critical discourse. Disappointing, too, because as I’ve said I do think the Drinker makes some good observations about the problem with modern entertainment at times. Everyone engages in this type of thing so ruthlessly these days, it gets a bit exhausting. It’s easy to find yourself slipping into that mode as well and I don’t particularly like being a hypocrite. I’ve found myself tuning out from all the drama, rancour and discord. Muting the game chat of the universe and all that jazz.

But I’ve dipped my toes back in because it’s been bugging me and for the sake of liberty and freedom, we must crush the bugs! Managed Democracy to the rescue! Huzzah!

1. The book Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein is an odd duck. It’s a sort of pro-military Utopian sci-fi book about a society in which people can only vote and become citizens if they dedicate some years of service to the state (the military angle is the focus of the book but there are other non-military service options as well) so that along with great power comes a better understanding of great responsibility. It’s often interpreted as pro-fascist, and in some ways that’s how I read it as well, but Heinlein was such a weird guy that who knows. While I definitely think the system he describes is idealistic and wrong for a number of reasons he also wrote, in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, this passage about manage democracy:

“A managed democracy is a wonderful thing... for the managers... and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers define what is 'irresponsible'.”

Regardless of your interpretation of Starship Troopers the novel, or what its politics are, it’s clearly very pro-military, promoting the idea that the only path forward for humanity is to continue a forever war—the title of Joe Haldeman’s novel written as something of a rebuttal to Heinlein’s since he viewed it as glorifying war, something he wanted to push back on due to his own experience in Vietnam. Heinlein, notably, did not fight in any wars.