The huge success of Helldivers 2 has suddenly made a film from the 1990s popular again. Not surprising if you know what the film is about.
“Let’s spread some democracy!” Helldivers 2 is the big gaming hit right now. Every day the servers are rammed full and the developers are ramping up the capabilities. All because everyone wants to join this intergalactic battle against aliens and robots.
Despite its popularity, the concept of humans against aliens is not new. Countless movies, series, books and games have been made about it. But remarkably, the success of Helldivers 2 has led to a rediscovery of one of these alien films. Even the creative director of Helldivers 2 is surprised.
This movie is suddenly popular again thanks to Helldivers 2
The military recruits people to join the fight against an invasive species of aliens. The aliens resemble large insects and little by little conquer the universe. Now that Earth is also threatened, humanity decides to fight back. Exactly in the way only humans can. With big weapons, lots of explosions and lots and lots of soldiers.
I’m not talking about Helldivers 2, but Starship Troopers. If you only read the plot, you can understand why this 1997 movie is so popular again now. It is almost identical to the story behind Helldivers 2. Starship Troopers has suddenly been watched very often again in the last week. And the creative director of Helldivers 2 noticed that too, calling the phenomenon amazing.
(image: Tristar pictures)
Starship Troopers has pretty good reviews
Although the core of Starship Troopers is obviously shooting aliens over, the story does go a little deeper than that. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. The story is set in the 23rd century and where the fictional United Citizen Federation grants citizenship and rights only to those who serve in the military and exterminate alien “Arachnids.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film gets a decent 70%. It’s an entertaining film, if you can handle the amount of blood. Because Helldivers 2’s servers are regularly overcrowded, players often have to wait a long time to join in. Fans joke among themselves that in the meantime it’s fine to watch Starship Troopers to get in the mood.
Popularity of Helldivers 2 causes server problems
The immense success of Helldivers 2 does not come without setbacks. The servers are so full that players have to wait for a long time. Developers are working around the clock to expand server capacities and keep everything running smoothly.
Finally, a maximum player count of 450,000 players had been implemented so that the servers would not go haywire.
(image: Arrowhead)
Fortunately, this is only temporary. Game studio Arrowhead is trying to remove this maximum player count. And if that fails, it wants to at least raise the maximum so that the game can be played by more people.
In fact, Helldivers 2 is now so popular that it does knock some very big games off the throne with its player numbers:
