Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox, per a new trailer that was just posted to Arrowhead’s channel. The video in question, which uses P.O.D’s “Boom”, is pretty cute in itself—the fact that Arrowhead has waited a whole year and a half before using this particular bop in their promotional material, I feel, shows remarkable restraint.
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What turns this into actual news for us here at PC Gamer, however, is the little wink-wink nudge-nudge snuck in by the devs at the very end. A rain-drenched Super Earth city is greeted to a lone Helldivers 2 pod-drop, while a saxophone croons a tune familiar to anyone who was traumatised by Halo 3: ODST back in 2009.
In case you’re not familiar, Halo 3: ODST was the series’ answer to Saving Private Ryan. Imagining a world where you’re not playing Master Chief, but a bunch of Helljumpers—ODST troops who spend most of the game dying in increasingly tragic ways.
The sax in question is from Rain (Deference for Darkness), which plays in the OG game’s Mombasa Streets alongside companion pieces Trailhead and Guiding Hand.
It’s pretty much confirmation that a long-awaited Halo crossover is in the works—which isn’t much of a surprise, given Arrowhead and Microsoft both would want to make a big deal out of it coming to the latter’s home-turf console. And, given the game has crossplay, anything developed in the name of said crossover is going to be making its way over to PC as well.
So one of Microsoft’s flagship franchises is now coming to Helldivers 2, a deliberate satire of warfare and the dangers of military overreach. It feels necessary, in this context, to point out that Microsoft is currently facing widespread criticism for the Israeli military’s use of its AI in Gaza, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, including children.
The timing is unfortunate, to say the least, even if Arrowhead would’ve been in such talks months before the news broke. Helldivers 2 will be arriving to Xbox Series X|S August 26, though whether this crossover will also be debuting then is unclear.
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