Warning: This post contains a reference to suicideIfHelldivers 2received a movie adaptation, it would 100% ooze B-movie energyakin to Starship Troopersmixed with the humor of Eight-Legged Freaks. Bug hordes galloping across a desert plain towards outnumbered humans sound familiar? But another low-budget film that went on to become a cult classic echoes in the shooter’s own creepy crawlers and gave me flashbacks to one of the most shocking endings in cinema.
Frank Darabont’s live-action version of Stephen King’s The Mist may have been forgotten had it not delivered one of the bleakest conclusions imaginable, and thanks to that trauma, Helldivers 2’s eerie cinematography and skin-crawling creatures provided gut-punching flashbacks to the 2007 sci-fi horror because the vibe matches perfectly.
Helldivers 2 Review: Freedom Never Sleeps
Liber-tea never tasted so good!
An Ending Disguised As A Stomach Punch…
For context, King’s 1980 novella has a polar opposite denouement to Darabont’s. In the source material, David Drayton, his son, and a few survivors continue driving into the encapsulating mist towards the monsters that walk within it, heading for a possible salvation in Hartford, Connecticut. The movie’s ending, however, was out for blood. Instead of following King’s ambiguous close, Darabont chose to have Thomas Jane’s David kill his son and the survivors because they thought there was no hope of escaping the mist and surviving. Moments before taking his own life, an army tank rolled by his car, and the audience was quickly shown the soldiers gaining an advantage over the monsters. David’s sacrifice was for nothing, and viewers were left gazing into the abyss, stunned by the protagonist’s grief.
Both projects harbor spider-like creatures of varying sizes where their true scale and might are hidden behind the mist, or in Helldivers 2’s instance, the dust of barren planets and the haze of other biomes.
So, how does this devastation connect to Helldivers 2? Don’t worry, I haven’t recalled the most heart-breaking ending in fiction for fun.
It’s no secret that the shooter is filled with multiple failed attempts while you and your comrades attempt to complete extraction only to be chomped several times by Terminids. Sad endings galore. However, the imagery presented inArrowhead Game Studio’s hit co-opserved as an unexpected callback to The Mist’s eldritch sequences. Both projects harbor spider-like creatures of varying sizes where their true scale and might are hidden behind the mist, or in Helldivers 2’s case, the dust of barren planets and the haze of biomes. The shooter’s aesthetic lighting and rich terrain give it a cinematic projection and the Terminids mirror The Mist’s Arachni-Lobsters and Gray Widowers.
The final monster you witness in the movie is the Behemoth, or The Impossibly Tall Creature — a six-legged, tentacled monster estimated to be 240 feet tall (73m). This giant gradually reveals itself to David and the survivors through the dissipating fog, and while there’s nothing of that size or design in Helldivers 2, the game’sBile Titansemerge similarly from the murk. Planets catering to desert, forest, swamp, or volcanic environments will usually cast smog or some sort of brume onto gameplay, giving the Terminids optimal cover and flashbacks to The Mist for myself.
Helldivers 2 Needs More Overpowered Weapons (Skip The Nerfs)
I’m tired of seeing the same meta loadouts, but nerfs aren’t the answer.
Brutality And Bleak Endings Are My Go-Tos
Another similarity between The Mist and Helldivers 2 is the use of sound. Dismissing the handy-dandy minimap that pinpoints surrounding enemies, you’ll usually hear the game’s Terminids before you see them, jostling together with high-pitched squeals and hissing. This technique was also used in The Mist to heighten the viewer’s fear factor by broadcasting the monsters’ various clicks, shrieks, and movements from within the fog before ever showing their appearance. During the game’s extraction period, hearing the incoming Terminid horde before seeing it is a painstaking realization, especially when you’re so close to completion. Survivors who decided to brave the mist in the film would usually disappear into the smog, and their demise would be heard instead of shown. This technique also adds to Helldivers’ cinematic quality, whether the intent to make the shooter a photogenic war epic was there or not.
Another similarity between The Mist and Helldivers 2 is the use of sound… You’ll usually hear the shooter’s Terminids before you see them, jostling together with high-pitched squeals and hissing.
The Mist started as any other modest book-to-film horror project and later servedThe Walking Deadfans by grouping four of the show’s actors — Jeffrey DeMunn, Laurie Holden, Melissa McBride, and Juan Gabriel Pareja — before the comic-book adaptation hit the small screen in 2010. Darabont’s significant change to the ending was approved beforehand by King, who applauded the director’s nihilistic approach to flipping Hollywood’s happy ending troupe the finger. So, what do The Mist, The Walking Dead, and Helldivers 2 have in common? All three projects don’t shy away from brutality and embrace bleak endings to voice the impartialhorrors of war, whether it’s against Lovecraftian monsters, zombies (or psychotic survivors), or Terminids.
To spare Helldivers from the resounding doom and gloom found in The Mist, the shooter flaunts a comical tone similar toFallout, which boosts morale among comrades. Despite several players laughing in the face of despair, when Terminids are swarming over doomed squads, that sense of anguish and futility lurks in the shooter’s blueprint and tugs on my emotional thread still attached to Darabont’s touch of brilliance. I say brilliance because, despite being sickening, his bold and brave decision to make his adaptation hit hard is what cinema and the arts are all about - making you feel raw emotions, good or bad. After all, those are the ones that stick. Helldivers 2’s cinematography and painstaking fight for survival made an impression on my cinephile spirit and made me sprint back to The Mist to relive the beautiful trauma all over again.
