HELLDIVERS™ 2
HELLDIVERS™ 2
Game
Game2025
PIONER
Developer GFAGAMES
Pioner (stylized in all caps) is an upcoming open-world first-person shooter video game developed by GFAGames. The game was released into early access via Steam for Linux and Windows on December 16, 2025, with versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S planned at a later date. The game is set on a post-apocalyptic Soviet-era island. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
256 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 28, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
43
Mixed
97 positive · 131 negative
95% range 36–49%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 97 | 131 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 3 | 1 | 15 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 9 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mixed
868 of 1,324 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Players are split on this early-access MMOFPS, with praise for potential and criticism of bugs.
Many players enjoy the game's atmosphere and potential, comparing it to STALKER and Fallout. Some report good performance and fun gameplay, especially in PvE. [3][7][11]
However, many criticize severe server issues, bugs, and a lack of co-op campaign. Some allege the game attempts to install malware or has a pay-to-win subscription. [19][21][25][26][30]
Praised atmosphere and potential · PvE content · graphics and sound design
Criticised server issues and bugs · lack of co-op campaign · malware allegations · pay-to-win subscription
Summary drafted by an AI model from the 36 reactions it cites ([n] links open each post), then checked by code: every paragraph cites real posts and every quote is verbatim. Written Oct 8, 2026. Method
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
PIONER sits at 43% positive across 228 opinionated reactions from 3 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Various reviewers have noted similarities to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and Escape from Tarkov.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 256 · most liked firstI've had my eye on PIONER for quite some time and I personally love looting, crafting and shooting... its basically Destiny 2 with crafting and some lite RPG elements set in a STALKER type post apoc setting... sounds like my dreams come true, so why not give it a try. Be warned it's gonna sound like I hate it, I don't, but I am worried about it in a big, big way. I don't regret buying it, and overall I am having a good time with it and it has a low price point so overall I do recommend it...…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Where do I start? First of all, let me stress the fact, that this is still an early access title. This means, the devs are full aware of its unfinished state and they need you and me to support further development. That said, let me try to break down my experience with this game as shortly as possible, so you can get to the end of this review without getting too distracted. What Vibes does this Game give me? This game feels a lot like a mix of Metro, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout - but…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →THIS GAME IS PHISHING FOR INFORMATION ON YOUR COMPUTER. THIS GAME TRIED 100 TIME IN 10 MINS TO GET INFORMATION AND IT WAS BLOCKED.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →From a story and missions perspective, the game is good. It is still relatively short, but the latest update added a continuation to the story, which suggests there may be more content in the future. The PvE content is excellent. The maps are also great and very enjoyable, although some of them still need improvements — but overall, they are awesome. However, the real issue is server optimization. Honestly, every time there’s an improvement to the servers, they seem to become heavy and laggy…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The gameplay is fun, the graphics are decent, and the story is interesting, but when your servers can't support 1k players and you are advertising this as an mmo... thats not good.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Last update was a total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clownfest: - Reduced stash space from 140 > 120 - Introduced a monthly subscription to give you unlimited stash space - Wiped either everybody's inventory or their progress They also made a surprise undisclosed addition of EasyAntiCheat, except it is completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and not working so now I can't play the game on my Linux machine. Many of us will be entitled to a refund. GG. Edit: Refund request going in. Doesn't take a week to solve this. Edit 2: Now…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ignoring all the jankiness and bugs, this is a really fun open-world MMOFPS for people who like games like Fallout 76 and Stalcraft. I have yet to try all the end-game content, but I will update my review once I've experienced enough of the game. (To all the people telling me that ignoring the jank/bugs is insane, THIS IS EARLY-ACCESS meaning you should expect jank/bugs!)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's fun and it pays to explore. There some bug and some optimization in some areas. but mostly the game runs well. good looking gun play is sold and fun lots of attachment for the guns and you can feel the difference when using different ones. They are actively patching the weekly and sometimes daily. If the keep it up the game will only get better.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before I start, I find it funny how many obvious bot reviews this game has. Just sad and pathetic. I already left a negative review before, and after the latest update… yeah, still ♥♥♥♥. They pushed out a new update with a new story, new items, world events, and a raid. Sounds good on paper. In reality? All the exact same problems are still here. The biggest issue is still the servers. How can this keep being marketed as an MMO when peak Steam players is around 1.6k and the servers still…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It feels suspiciously like they intentionally made the tutorial drag out past the 2 HR mark to avoid refunds. After just under two hours, I was just finishing the tutorial missions and have no idea what the actual game loop is. I really wanted to like this game, but there's just too much jank. F2P is really where this should be.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not a Co-Op game! Bought this with a friend only to discover that the entire campaign is locked to single player; the only multiplayer experiences are PvP and a handful of optional PvE raids and events. Very disappointed, the game looks great and the combat seemed pretty good - the whole thing kind of gives me an Elderscrolls + DayZ vibe - but how on earth can you market this as a co-op when players literally cannot group up and complete the campaign cooperatively? This is a single player MMO…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a masterclass in how to squander potential at every conceivable level. From the moment it launches, it signals its lack of respect for the player’s time, intelligence, and money. The gameplay is painfully repetitive and mechanically shallow. Core systems feel unfinished, unbalanced, or outright broken, as if they were stitched together hours before release. Controls are unresponsive, animations are stiff, and combat devolves into mindless button-mashing with no tactical depth or…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Would've given a positive review, but they added a pay to win subscription to a game that already has microtransactions and a starting price of $30. GG
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →At the moment, I cannot recommend this game. Although the game’s concept and storyline appear novel and interesting, I encountered a very serious bug within less than one hour of gameplay. After entering the church and opening the entrance to the underground passage, the game became stuck in an infinite loading state. When I restarted the game, I was forced back to the very beginning, to the opening scene where the character wakes up in bed. I then started a new playthrough, only to get stuck…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There's no flow in which the player can spend hundreds of hours. Endgame - raids - is bad; the game says that without a team player are useless, not possible to play raids solo. and no one randome team. the player can't do anything. Character development is regressive. Instead of acquiring and using the best equipment, the character always lacks resources to maintain their equipment. It's as if they want to sell loot for real money in a pay to play game in the future. That's not what I'm…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →dont buy this - Servers are down (over a week now?). When you try to log in to your character the game just restarts. Dev didnt release any info aswell (as much as I know).
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I get that many games have a rough start, but in my opinion this one has a lot of potential. I personally enjoyed it a lot and do not regret buying it. The developers definitely deserve support, at least for the concept and the idea behind the game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The worst thing about this game is no check points. To get almost all the way through a mission to get killed because there are 40 enemies and 1 of you and now you have to redo the whole mission again? naw, fk that.. I'll go play something else.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Does have potential but it's a complete buggy and janky mess right now. If you like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or played eurojank like Survarium or Stay Out you might enjoy PIONER. I enjoy the game when it works, it has a nice atmosphere and cool environments but cannot recommend due to all the bugs, servers problems and softlock issues. The game is also plagued with Unreal Engine traversal stutters, it's unbearable, to me it's beyond comprehension why there is no pre-compilation of shaders on start up.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →sometimes your guns wont reload, sometimes they wont fire, sometimes you log in and realize the last few hours you played and everything you did during that time didnt count. i want to enjoy this game but apparently they have no intention of fixing these issues because its been happening for as long as i can see.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game keeps trying to introduce phishing malware on PC was attempting 4 times every minute.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you came for PVE, this is not a good PVE game. The campaign is solo, matchmaking doesn't work for raids (tried going into the matchmaking pool with a friend, we never matched) and the design choices are ridiculous. You can be very good at the game and the game mechanics themselves will destroy you in seconds. If you lose sight of an enemy for 1 second you could be dead (worms). A lot of them are built too good, their skills are nearly inescapable. The game is B2P, but feels very F2P, I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I enjoyed my time with the game during beta, it has improved since then with the combat. I can only speak to my experience with the game and encounter no bugs so far, not saying they may not exist just I have yet to experience any. The game is essentially Stalker equivalent to Fallout76, sort of. I will admit with size of map and how many there are, with this game primarily focusing on PVE (atleast early on) you will be running around killing the same enemies and looting the same chests that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Okay so im not going to lie, i have decent hardware so obviously thats a factor in gameplay and performance. What i can say is that i am having fun. As someone who enjoyed Fallout, Stalker and Destiny, this is scratching an itch. If youve been a fan or enjoyed those games in the past i would recommend Pioner. Open world, RPG, FPS, exploration, this game has it. All that aside it has issues which the developers seem to be working on from what ive seen. Servers are definitely buggy and there…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is actually kind of fun an exactly the kind of game I am interested in playing, but, unfortunately, it's an MMOFPS with two major bugs right now: 1. Your progress is randomly reset frequently, meaning you might play for four hours and log back in and it's as if the last 3 and a half hours never happened. Your XP, weapons, unlocks, whatever, all reset. They tell you that their customer support will fix this, but, it's happened to me multiple times in only a couple of days, I am not…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →probably on sale cuz it doesn't do ♥♥♥♥. i wish i could return this game. Can't even Sign In anymore, which is a pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ important part..
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nothing has changed since the last game tests, the game can't just go through the loading screen at the end of the prologue. Based on this, it is not surprising that the publisher sold exclusivity on the territory of the Russian Federation and Belarus to the frankly mediocre Internet provider Rostelecom. The game is a Mess of assets and ideas and does not get a complete picture. You'd better play Painkiller (2025) than this misunderstanding.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wanted this game to be good since the setting is fairly interesting. I played it on launch and it was okay overall, nothing great. Just played today to give it another try after a lot of time passed and nothing works. Reloading works maybe 5% of the time, everything is an aimbot and kills you super fast no matter what, guns refuse to fire occasionally and a ton more. This all happened within 30 minutes of starting the game back up. This game is a joke, please, please stay far away from this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →PvP zone is a bit of a mess. Full of sweats and exploiters. I just avoid it and stick to PvE. The game is 10x more enjoyable that way
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm a huge fan of anything Dayz/Stalker/Fallout inspired. Thought I'd give it a try and see what its about. I get its early access, but ill still have to critique it, it is for sale after all. I'll start with what I don't like... Don't like: -Audio- Character: Your character talks way to much. Some examples, such as (I'm reloading!) (Shut up weirdo) etc. I can do w out all that. Give me an option to turn it off altogether. World: The ambient world audio feels lacking. Once I turned off the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →alot of people dumping on the game but so far in 9hrs ive had no bugs, good performance with a 3070ti, the game has really good graphics, atmosphere, and sound design. the anomaly's are not bad if you have ever played stalker gamma. the story is okay id say. gameplay is sold feels like a survival game with a mmo setup which i like how they went about combining both. in terms of the pve content it makes it worth alone. hopefully people give it a shot and dismiss some of the reviews.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly the biggest, buggiest, pile of crap I've seen in a while. I get the premise of the game, what they were trying to achieve by mashing fallout, metro & stalker into 1 game, but they stuffed it up. weapons consistently won't reload (regardless of weapon condition). You can't play tactically, heaven forbid you think other than face tanking everything. To top it off, you can't move 5 feet withoout something attacking you. Anomolies are way over-populated. The whole map imo is an anomoly…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The open world quests are all instanced and solo only so I can't play them with my bf.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall, a great foundation for something that can be truly special to the genre. Optimization is excellent especially for an early access game! My biggest gripes at the moment is the AI art which the developers have stated will be immediately replaced with real humans once the right budget comes through, and the fact that they have a cash shop which only have cosmetics, which is good and i hope it stays that way. But i hope that the best designs aren't locked behind a paywall in the future.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DO NOT BUY THIS GAME This game is nothing more than a stalker wanna be in name only. this game absolutely sucks and if i could get a refund for this game then i would. HOLY ♥♥♥♥ is this game just bad. You see i buy these kinds of games because im weird and i LOVE bad games, i find a lot of enjoyment in playing bad games, but there is NO ENJOYMENT IN THIS GAME. sure there are elements that i do like but thats like less than 1% of the game. this game is just straight up boring to play. theres…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great STALKER/Metro vibe, exploring the world is actually fun and immersive. But the game is pretty rough. Ran into multiple bugs—enemy projectiles glitch visually, and the worst one is a reload bug where you literally can’t reload your weapon. That’s game-breaking in a shooter. Gunplay is okay, MMO elements feel unfinished, and late game lacks content. Not a bad game, just needs more time on the gas mark 6.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Steam refused a refund after I noticed I had over 1000 (literally) warnings about Phishing attempts by this game from my BitDefender, so if you're going to play this game regardless, please, protext yourself first, and understand your risks. I do understand the refusal, considering my initial play time, I do not understand, however, why this game is even allowed to be released, before they fix their "known issue". Aside from that, if you're looking for a true co-op experience, this isn't it.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Premise of game is good and it is a fun game. however I cannot suggest anyone purchase this game. it crashes alot and I have had problems launching the games as it freezes.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Russian Fallout 76. Still in development so keep it in mind. Yes its buggy, laggy, clunky but for me as solo player its not a big deal and its still enjoyable and it looks promising. Even though I didnt want to buy it at first because of how bad the alfa test was, I did buy it and I dont regret it. Im looking forward to what will come in the future. Peace and love
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Connection issues, guns stop working (has ammo and is nearly full durability), reloads dont trigger half the time, clunky UI. In general the gameplay needs work. Story and graphics are perfectly fine. Actually the graphics are above what I would expect which is what makes the gameplay so jarring.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wanted to love it. People mentioned the likes of Stalker and Metro as its influences. That was music to my ears. There are obvious superficial similarities. Anomalies, scavenging, etc. But where Metro and Stalker excelled, an engaging loop of exploration, danger, and discovery, this game struggles. The world feels empty, but not in a mystical sense like Stalker. It just feels devoid of things to do or feel. The enemies are linear and offer little excitement, at least at this point. The map…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →100% exactly what they advertised and delivered on. I am stoked for the future of this game. Took some time to get in but i did and made it through the first raid excited to see what's in store. I believe with time this will fill all my S.T.A.L.K.E.R needs i have now have G.A.M.M.A this and a couple other extraction shooters to fill the void and I'm very happy with the quality of this game. The sound has been elevated I noticed the guns and environment sound great. I noticed some geometry…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game would be fun if it werent for the fact sometimes your gun refuses to reload and have to wait 20 seconds for the game to realize your gun is empty, or the fact your gun can just refuse to shoot and you have to unequip it from inventory and reequip it, which is almost impossible while your already in a fight.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If I were to compare this to other games it would be games such as Rage 1 but in MMO form. Or even a Metro game with more loot. This game is a fun MMO looter shooter with decent storyline. The playable areas are diverse with great environmental design. Enemies are diverse and combat is highly enjoyable. English voice acting is not too bad. Music is an 7/10. Some tracks may repeat too often and more variety when exploring the overworld would help. Has a wide selection of server options. I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game's got potential. It's a bit janky, but nothing too cumbersome. Lots of people running around with how the zones are designed, lots of public events, dungeons, raids, etc. Traditional MMO style. No bugs yet from what I have encountered. Don't pay attention to the negative reviews from launch, since they are just from people who couldn't get in or were mad the servers had downtime. It's honestly been better than most MMO launches so far, and I'm having a good time. Also - Do not pay…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →60+ hours into the game so far. The game gives me Stalker , Fallout and Fallen Earth kind of vibes. The game is early access so there are issues............bugs and lag among them. Nothing crippling just annoying so far. Only really visited two zones so far so I have alot yet to see. Game does need more polish and the grind for resources needs tweeking ( my opinion ) Not done PvP , Raids or World Events yet so I cannot comment on those. The game is incomplete so buyer beware.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →constantly getting kicked off, servers take forever to load.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After finishing the prologue and making it to the main hub I logged out for the day. I try and log in the next day and see its trying to load back into the prologue and after a few seconds send me back to the main menu. After looking up if there was a fix I saw it have been a issue for over a year and still no fix. All the work arounds didn't work for me. deleted the app data, uninstalled, verify integrity of game files, and switch between direct x11 and 12. so I'm bricked... because all i did…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just exploring, no mission, is best way to play. Find cool places devs hid for no reason.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don' be put off by the sooks expecting a flawless experience. This is EXACTLY what EA should be used for. There's a very solid foundation of a game here. You get a tonne of content to play through right now and it's FUN. There's still features that are a bit wonky/broken but it's got a heavy dose of euro-jank charm so it's leargely forgivable. PROS: - International servers! Oceanic players rejoice there's a Sydney server! - The environments are phenomenal, nice graphics, runs fine on my mid…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Servers were an absolute mess on launch day. Players were losing progress, weren't able to leave the tutorial, and were experiencing various other issues. Thankfully most of those issues have been resolved, and the game is now in a decent place. With that said, it's still rough around the edges, as is to be expected from an Early Access title, but these are things they can, and surely will iron out over time. The biggest con currently facing the game would be how hard it is to play with…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →buy game. try play game. crash mid mission but is unnoticeable at first. REPEAT PROCESS
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game currently doesn't even let you play, you just sit in a loading screen until it black screens. I have tried deleting all my files, verifying files, swapping servers, lowering graphics to the lowest possible settings, everything that was suggested online and no dice after 5 attempts. As far as I'm aware the game is currently in a vegetable state and no longer works. No update on any of their socials either and their Discord link seems to be expired. I had to look up their Discord on…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well... I really want to like this game. The atmosphere is great, and I can tell the story has potential, but right now it's just not playable. The game crashes constantly, and the server issues make everything even worse. A good solution would be to make it fully single-player, or at least let people play privately with friends instead of relying on always-online servers. I spent 30 minutes stuck on a loading screen, only to be sent back to the church (I hadn't even gotten past that point)…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Can you briefly tell us what the game is about? - ‘server maintenance’
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was fun.......UNTIL.....now nothing will launch and no one can figure out why. Another brick game. ARGH!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not sure why people are hating on this game but i've played 20h now and heres my first impressions: The story is really good for MMO standards and has a very straight to the point story structure with interesting characters. 8/10 The gunplay although at times clunky feels really good in a'lot of guns that i've tried, there's a huge variation of guns and types although i haven't gotten around trying MG's yet. 7/10 The world is really well thought out and put together, there's a'lot of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Had promise, devs ruined it with a clear cash grab. Charge for features that should be part of the game. They want the live service cash cow but didn't get the memo that no one cares about live service. People just want a fun game that doesn't crash and is worth the price. I would refund if i could.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really love the overall concept of the game and the diversity of its landscapes. The weapons feel satisfying to use, and the attachments genuinely add depth and utility. The story is there and easy to follow, which is great — though that’s not where my main concerns lie. Issue 1: Performance and FPS Stability For context, I’m running a GTX 4070 Ti, AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, and 64GB of DDR4 3600MHz RAM — so performance shouldn’t be an issue. However, FPS stability is very inconsistent. Frame…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Almost refunded on day one due to server issues and progress loss. Glad I didn't. They fixed the worst of it quickly. Now it's a stable and enjoyable grind. The map feels big, and there's always a little goal to chase. It's repetitive, but so is Destiny. At least here the gameplay is straightforward and honest.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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