Helldivers 2‘s first crossover collaboration is officially here and it’s already causing some wallet agita. The good news is the multiplayer game is getting Killzone Helghast skins as it approaches its one-year anniversary. The bad news is the entire bundle of virtual cosmetics costs $20, half the price of the paid game itself.
“We decided a long time ago to do crossovers only if and when they make perfect sense for the game,” the development team wrote in a new blog post on Steam. “So in that spirit, we’re hyped to announce our very first crossover: Killzone 2. Helldivers 2 x Killzone 2 belongs to a new tier of special Premium content reserved for collaborations and other uniquely-themed work. Our plan is to offer you something distinct and special.”
The premium collaboration comes at a premium price, however. Buying everything in the set costs 1,975 Super Credits, an in-game currency players can slowly earn while playing or pay roughly $20 per 2,100 for. That makes the Killzone set the most expensive gear you can currently purchase in the Starship Troopers-inspired alien shooter, a game regularly priced at $40 with battle passes called Warbonds that include many more unlockables for just $10 each.
After several years of skin-flation across popular live-service games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Overwatch 2, $15-$20 has become the new norm for crossover skins that bring in popular outside characters and styles. But unlike those games, Helldivers 2 is not free-to-play and has already set a certain precedent for its in-game pricing system. Within that existing framework, the Helghast tributes look great but feel way overpriced. They’re also only in the shop for five days, meaning players can’t even take their time trying to grind for Super Credits across hundreds of missions.
“No set should costs over 1000sc,” reads one thread currently shooting up to the top of the Helldivers 2 subreddit. “Even if we forget the armor set, a new AR?? They seriously add a new gun and lock it behind a 600sc paywall!?” Another player responded that the Killzone set should have been its own Warbond instead, with more content and a lower price point at the cost of having to unlock each piece individually.
Others have pointed to a slippery slope where red lines for Helldivers 2‘s in-game shop have gradually been crossed. At first it was only cosmetic armor, later stratagems, the cool arsenal of war machinery that fuels the gameplay, were added to a paid Warbond, and recently weapons have made it into the shop’s FOMO rotation. Players who have purchased every Warbond since the game launched without using free credits would have spent $90 by this point.
Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani took to the game’s Discord to try and diffuse the situation. “Hey – quick comment on the Helghast stuff,” he wrote on Wednesday. “Firstly – this is our first collaboration so we’ll be figuring it out as we go along. Let us know what you’d like to see in the future. Secondly it’s optional – the more of this we sell – the more illuminate type stuff we can keep dropping for free.”
The suggestion that players need to swallow higher prices in order to keep getting free updates didn’t go over to well. “You cannot be serious,” wrote one player in response. “These prices are fucking egregious. Your game is NOT FREE. We have already paid, you don’t get to hide behind a 20 dollar skin as if that makes the difference.” Jorjani simply wrote back, “noted!”
One of the biggest games of 2024, Helldivers 2 has previously butted heads with its community a couple of times this year. The first was over a controversial PSN login requirement on Steam that saw the game’s rating review-bombed to smithereens until it reversed course. The second was a series of patches nerfing some of players’ favorite gear and loadouts, including things they’d purchased from paid Warbonds, which eventually lead the studio to commit to an apology tour of buffing things instead and focusing on addressing performance, stability, and other issues in the meantime.
That recent revival was capped off with the free Omens of Tyranny update this month, that added the game’s third Illuminate faction and new urban warfare maps. It’s a great new chapter in the game’s ongoing Galactic War whose fanfare might be cut short by the bungled Killzone skin rollout, even if the studio was banking on those to help pay for it.
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