Helldivers 2 Has Mass Effect Easter Egg

An eagle-eyed player has spotted a deep Mass Effect Easter egg in Helldivers 2, one that might put a smile on the face of anyone with fond memories of shopping in the Citadel. Earlier this month, Arrowhead Game Studios released the sequel to its 2015 top-down shooter Helldivers on PlayStation 5 and PC. Helldivers 2 shifts the camera to an over-the-shoulder third-person perspective, but it retains the same premise: as one of the titular Helldivers, the player must travel to alien worlds to defend the Super Earth government from various extraterrestrial threats.

The Helldivers series borrows some of its sci-fi aesthetics from classic works like Star Wars, Alien, and Starship Troopers, but it could also draw comparisons to BioWare’s acclaimed RPG series Mass Effect. Like in Helldivers 2, the Mass Effect games put players in the role of a futuristic space solider tasked with taking down an ancient alien menace, and the gameplay is even presented from the same third-person view as Helldivers 2.

The developers behind Helldivers 2 might just be aware of the similarities between their game and Mass Effect, as a Reddit user named QueenSparks recently shared a screenshot from the former on r/Helldivers that calls back to Mass Effect 2. In the game’s Super Store, players can read item reviews while purchasing weapons and cosmetic items using Helldivers 2’s in-game currency, and one message that can come up reads “I’m [redacted] and this is my favorite product in the acquisition center.” This is nearly an exact match for a phrase Shepard uses in Mass Effect 2: “I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel."

In Mass Effect 2, Commander Shepard and their new crew return to the Citadel, the capital of the Milky Way Galaxy, to prepare for the impending battle against the Collectors. In the Citadel’s Zakera Ward lies various shops where Shepard can purchase weapons and other various items, and players who choose to follow Mass Effect's more altruistic Paragon