The secret sauce with Helldivers 2, outside of the excellent moment-to-moment blasting, is the game's overarching galactic war. Controlled by developer Arrowhead and game master Joel, this sees the Helldivers marshalled to various spots across the galaxy to fight for key objectives, with success often resulting in some sort of in-game reward (like mech suits) and failure setting back the cause of democracy an unspecified amount.
This is a top-down narrative, with the objectives set by the developers and players along for the ride. Well, mostly: The community did band together over the player-authored "Martale Gambit", to the extent even Joel had to acknowledge what was happening. The Martale Gambit ultimately didn't come off, though it got within a whisker, and now some foolhardy Helldivers are eager to try it all again.
