In A Full Circle Moment, Helldivers 2 Has Helped More People Discover Starship Troopers

Helldivers 2 is essentially a Starship Troopers game in everything but name, and fittingly, the bug-blasting sequel has helped dramatically increase the viewership numbers of the classic 1997 action film. Possibly due to players needing to something to watch while waiting for their chance to play on the game's heavily populated servers.

According to online TV ratings tracker Television Stats (via Eurogamer), interest in Starship Troopers began to spike around February 18 and has continued to climb since then, and at the time of writing, it was the 25th most popular film online. Game director Johan Pilestedt had a brief response to the resurgence of interest in Starship Troopers:

While Helldivers 2 also borrows a few elements from Warhammer 40K--the titular Helldivers are slightly overzealous when it comes to preaching about democracy--Starship Troopers is primarily the chief source of inspiration here. Yuri Lowenthal--Peter Parker in Insomniac's Spider-Man series--is one of the four voices behind the Helldivers and the actor says that he was "heavily" inspired by the Paul Verhoeven-directed film.

"Received word I can confirm my involvement in Helldivers 2," Lowenthal tweeted. "And in case it wasn't clear, my performance was HEAVILY inspired by Starship Troopers."

Behind the scenes, Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead is ramping up efforts on its hit game. After a busy launch week on PC and PS5, the studio has increased server capacity, and is planning to hire more staff.

"Helldivers 2 is just a really good time, and it banks on that being enough to convince you to stick around for a long time. Frankly, I'm sold--it's the most fun I've had in a new shooter in years," Jordan Ramée wrote in GameSpot's Helldivers 2 review.