Digital Foundry: Helldivers 2 shows excellent quality on PC and PS5

Digital Foundry took a look at the technical side of Helldivers 2. Initially, there were rumors that the game might run on Unreal Engine 5, but the publication reports that it is a modified Autodesk Stingray engine, known from Warhammer 40K: Darktide.

Arrowhead Game Studios’ new creation is an online action game, so what impresses may not be the setting, but the scale.

“Helldivers 2 is an action game, and you will spend most of your time in the game fighting insects and robot enemies. These firefights can look quite unusual, especially when all four players are tightly grouped, trying to defend an objective. The main thing here is how enemies react to gunshots: with every bullet impact, small droplets of blood or smoke appear, along with bits of guts or mechanical parts. This makes the simple act of shooting enemies satisfying.

We can sever pieces from any enemy, blowing off limbs with small arms, or obliterate them with artillery fire. I liked the physics — especially in aggregate, when the frame is simply filled with physics objects, particles, and disintegrating enemies. Buildings can collapse under airstrikes or blow up from a well-aimed grenade, and the terrain also deforms under fire.”

The authors believe that Helldivers 2 cannot be called a technological leap forward, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed even in performance mode.

“Volumetric lighting is frequently used, such as light shafts piercing through rocks and trees. The quality level is high and presented without obvious distortions, even on PS5 in performance mode. Clouds are volumetric, at least in the lower atmospheric layers, and resolve without distracting artifacts. Low-lying fog also appears to be part of the equation, and ground-level fog often lends an otherworldly quality to the planets.”

The game offers quality and performance modes — 1728p/30fps and 1080p/60fps respectively. 

“The difference between PC at max 4K settings and PS5 in quality mode is small, with slightly higher resolution shadows and a slightly cleaner image being absent. But this does not provide an ideal picture, and anti-aliasing remains a major issue. On a high-performance system using a Ryzen 7 7800X3D with an RTX 4090, 90 fps is typically observed at max settings in 4K.”

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