One of last year's breakout successes in the multiplayer game-space was Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, which aimed to spread democracy across the stars via shooting aliens and robots with lots and lots of bullets. Now, hot off the heels of releasing their monumental board game adaptation of Elden Ring, Steamforged Games is doing another adaptation of a video game: the fast-paced and frenetic experience of Helldivers 2. The board game is now available to back on Gamefound – and IGN had the chance to play a prototype of the game and sit down with designers Jamie Perkins, Derek Funkhouser, and Nicholas Yu to discuss this exciting new tabletop rendition.

Helldivers 2: The Board Game

17 ImagesHaving begun its development shortly after the launch of the video game early last year, Helldivers 2: The Board Game captures the essence of what has made the video game so popular and exciting. It recreates the tense firefights, chaotic surprises, and teamwork-centric experience while offering its own unique twists to the formula.

Helldivers 2 remains a purely cooperative, objective-based skirmish game where one to four players (the designers recommend solo players use two characters) work together to complete the selected objective while surviving mobs of enemies and unexpected events. Each player takes on the role of a different class of Helldiver, each equipped with a unique perk, a set of action cards to use on their turn, and a powerful one-per-game “Act of Valor” ability. The demo included the Heavy, Sniper, Pyro, and the Captain. Players outfit themselves with a kit consisting of primary, secondary, and support guns, a grenade, and three stratagems they can call in, with a recommended loadout listed on their class card. As players gain experience, they can customize their loadouts before a game.

Gameplay unfolds on grid-based boards that expand as you explore, requiring you to place down new boards, which reveal various sub-objectives and the locations of your primary objectives – in my prototype’s case, these were the various Terminid hatcheries to destroy. As you delve deeper, more challenging enemies spawn, and with the mission timer limiting how long you can take to complete your objective and evacuate, games remain frenetic and tense.

The prototype I played focused on one objective, destroying a certain number of Terminid hatcheries, but the final release will offer a variety of options. Regarding enemies, Jamie explained that the base game would include two of the three main factions – the Terminids and the robotic Automatons – with each faction featuring 10 unit types. While they couldn’t confirm anything, given Steamforged Games' history with stretch goals, it's likely we'll see the Illuminate via an expansion.

I was particularly curious about how the board game would handle the video game's sense of being overwhelmed and outnumbered. Would it adopt a strategy similar to Zombicide, using sheer numbers of creatures, or would it follow Nemesis with fewer, but stronger enemies? Helldivers 2 opts for the latter, focusing on tactical, close-up fights with progressively more challenging enemies as the mission progresses.

Turns involve players and enemies adding their action cards to a pool, which are shuffled and placed onto the initiative tracker (similar to Steamforged’s Elden Ring game), with combat based on dice rolls. An innovative feature is that for every four action cards played, a random event occurs, often disrupting plans by spawning horde enemies or additional foes, usually accompanied by a few expletives from the players. It adds to the excitement.

For Helldivers, combat is resolved through dice rolls, with each weapon offering its type and number of dice. Damage is determined by the total value of the roll, with every five points inflicting a single wound on an enemy. This approach simplifies damage calculation, as you always hit – the only question is how much damage you deal. There’s a risk of hitting allies, especially with area attacks, but sometimes sacrifices are necessary to take out a particularly tough enemy (thank goodness for reinforcements).

A unique feature the designers are proud of is the ‘Massed Fire’ mechanic, which aims to recreate the feeling of teamwork seen in the video game.

“In the video game, you're encouraged to work together as a team," Nic explained. "When facing a heavily armored enemy, you need to flank and shoot at weak points if you don't have a support weapon. But there wasn't a good way to do that in a board game without complex facing and armor mechanics. So we implemented 'massed fire,' allowing other Helldivers within range to focus fire on the same target, explicitly rewarding teamwork.”

The designers emphasized that players can explore solo if they wish, but the ‘Massed Fire’ mechanic reduces downtime and encourages group play, allowing more involvement during other players' turns and more dice rolling – always a plus.

Enemy attacks, however, are more straightforward, with set damage or effects dictated by their cards, causing players to draw wound cards. Each wound inflicts a detrimental effect, and if a player accumulates three wounds, their character dies. Death isn’t permanent, though; depending on the chosen difficulty, players can respawn with their full loadout of ammo and resources.

One aspect of the Helldivers 2 experience that doesn't translate to the tabletop is the galactic war. The designers considered including it but ultimately dropped it, as Arrowhead wanted the game to feel unique and not just a direct simulation of the source material.

Jamie shared a fun piece of lore about the board game: “We're positioning it as a training simulation. So you would get this board game as a Helldiver to learn how to be a better Helldiver.” I’m hopeful that one day we'll see Helldivers in the video game playing this board game around a table.

Thanks to Nic, Jamie, and Derek's talent, this latest release from Steamforged Games is already shaping up well. Despite the new medium, their goal is for it to still feel like a Helldivers game.

“We wanted to ensure that, despite different mechanics, it felt like Helldivers – with unexpected events from turn to turn, stratagems that could go awry and affect your friends as well as enemies, and a dwindling pool of reinforcements as you progress through the game. These elements are uniquely Helldivers,” Nic said.

Derek added, “We knew we needed to keep the core loop of what Helldivers is about – mission objectives and the thrill of chasing the shiny. We've got points of interest, sub-objectives, and objectives to uncover and find, all while dealing with enemies trying to eat you.”

As it stands, the core of the game and its mechanics are about 75-80% finalized, which is where Steamforged likes to be when launching campaigns. This allows flexibility for community feedback, balance adjustments, or new ideas. Regarding recent events surrounding tariffs and their impact on the board gaming space and the concerns developers are facing, Jamie assures that these won’t slow down their plans, and they are moving forward as intended. If adjustments are needed, the studio has experts to guide them.

After playing the prototype, I found the systems in place to be fun, with random events and the Massed Fire mechanic leading to epic moments. However, while I appreciate the tactical focus with larger, more challenging enemies, I wish there were more smaller enemies to clear out with friends, similar to the video game experience. I also feel that enemy attacks could use more depth, perhaps with different outcomes determined by dice rolls, to match the chaos of the rest of the game.

I'm eager to see what other surprises Steamforged Games has in store for Helldivers 2. What I’ve played so far has me excited to try out new Helldiver classes, explore different game types, and mix and match them with various enemies and biomes. My friends and I are already asking: Where are we dropping next?

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