Buy Deep Rock Galactic. It is the same four-player mission loop for a fraction of the money - and if your squad is split across PS5, Xbox and PC, buy Warframe instead, because it is free and crosses every platform
The verdict first: Deep Rock Galactic is the closest thing to Helldivers 2 in this catalogue, and it is the one to buy. One to four players, online co-op, a mission you deploy into and extract from, four classes that are genuinely bad at each other's jobs, and friendly fire that will end a friendship. It is also usually a small fraction of a full-price release, which matters when you are asking three other people to buy the same thing.
There is one catch, and it is the reason this page leads with two answers rather than one: Deep Rock Galactic's crossplay is Xbox and PC on the Microsoft Store only - not Steam. If your squad is a PS5, an Xbox and two PCs, that rules it out before anybody opens a wallet. For a genuinely mixed squad the pick is Warframe: one to four players, free, and cross-platform play and Cross Save across every platform it runs on, including Switch and mobile. Nobody pays, nobody is excluded, and the four-player mission structure is close enough that the muscle memory carries.
If what you actually miss is the shooting rather than the deploy-and-extract structure, Borderlands 4 is the better purchase - four online, crossplay via a free SHiFT account, and two of you can split the screen on a PS5 or Xbox, which Helldivers never allowed. If you miss the hunt, Monster Hunter Wilds. If you miss the loot, Diablo IV.
What makes a game “like Helldivers 2” - four properties, not a genre
One: a squad of exactly three or four, not a lobby of twelve.The whole social shape of Helldivers is that the group is small enough that everyone's mistake is visible. Two: a run with an end state. You deploy, you do a job, you extract or you die - and either way the session has a natural stopping point, which is what makes it playable on a weeknight. Three: friendly fire, or something like it. The comedy and the tension both come from the fact that your teammates are a hazard. Four: loadouts that force role choices before the run, not during it.
Every pick below hits at least three. The ones that only hit two - a competitive shooter, a survival sandbox - are not here, however good they are, because the thing you are replacing is a specific evening, not a genre.
Crossplay is the filter that eliminates half of these before you read the blurbs
Work out what your squad owns first, because three of these seven have crossplay limits that will leave somebody out. Warframe, Diablo IV, Monster Hunter Wilds and Content Warning cross every platform they ship on. Borderlands 4's online crossplay works but needs a free SHiFT account made in advance, which is a five-minute job you want done before everybody sits down rather than during. Elden Ring Nightreign does not have crossplay at all- its matchmaking is per-platform, so a PS5 player and a PC player cannot team up, and that alone disqualifies it for most mixed groups. And Deep Rock Galactic's crossplay is the awkward one described above. The crossplay hub runs the same check across the rest of the site, and the games that are not cross platform is the honest inverse list.
Three or four players? It changes the shortlist
Most of these are four-player games. Elden Ring Nightreign is three, which is a genuine problem for a group of four and the reason it sits low on this page despite being the most interesting game on it mechanically. If you are a trio, the three-player list is built for you; if you are consistently four, four-player picks and co-op shooters are the wider lists this page sits inside.
