The video game Helldivers 2 is a third-person shooter that features a lot of satire. However, as with other examples of pop culture satire, from South Park to Starship Troopers, everyone’s take on the attempted humor is different.

Made by Swedish game developers Arrowhead Studios, Helldivers 2 has the player living on “Super Earth” fight in a galactic war for “Managed Democracy,” an authoritarian government system in which citizens are given candidates to vote for. Characters scream about freedom – while committing acts similar to those committed by fascist and imperialist governments in the real world.

The game’s satire is purposely exaggerated. The recent “Entrenched Division” update of the game added weapons and armor inspired by World War I Germany. 

There also are allusions to real-world events like the Iraq War and global oil conflicts. The Terminids in the video game are a bug-like species that only became violent due to genetic modification meant to make them produce more of the highly valuable element 710. The tongue in cheek reference becomes evident when gamers realize that “710” flipped upside down spells “oil.”

“The bugs turn into oil when they die, so Super Earth wants to make sure we never fully eradicate them,” an article in PC Gamer said.

Despite the messaging, players interpret the game in very different ways. Junior Logan Dodd sees the game as mainly entertainment.

“I don’t really think that deep into it,” Dodd said. “I thought the message was to mess around and kill tons of stuff while spreading democracy.”

Others recognize the satire, but it doesn’t change how they interact with the content.

“There are a whole bunch of references … but it doesn’t impact how I interact with the game,” senior Xander Dirling said.

Even if the satire is obvious, players should not engage with it deeply, Dodd said.

“I think people should be spending their time more on fun aspects than the deeper meaning behind it,” Dodd said.

But for junior Lucas Cormier, the satire is an important part of the game. It impacts how he plays and the way he feels while playing.

“There are not many games that do it as well as Helldivers. It makes me feel like I’m the bad guy,” Cormier said. “It’s Star Wars, but you can only play as the stormtroopers.”

Cormier realized the anti-imperial and anti-fascist messaging of the game from “pretty much the first cut scene.” He is also familiar with other games where the message is sometimes misinterpreted or lost, such as Fallout, Cormier said. The Fallout series is a critique of capitalism and greed, but it is sometimes misinterpreted as a glorification of war and the apocalypse.

This issue is not unique to Helldivers 2 or video games in general. The long-running satirical comedy, South Park, is no stranger to this issue. The show parodies a variety of topics: religion, politics, climate change, cryptocurrency, celebrities, and more. Much of this satire is done through the foil character Eric Cartman. However, portions of the audience over the years have supported Cartman’s extremist beliefs, laughing with him instead of at him.

According to an article in MovieWeb, some fans misunderstand Cartman’s role and end up admiring his behavior instead of realizing that it is satire.

“The problem is that some people see Cartman as the show’s hero,” journalist Lee LaMarche said. “It’s an unequivocal position of stupidity that some audiences cannot seem to grasp as parody.”

This is not an uncommon occurrence in the world of satire and media, and the concept has a name, Duquesne University professor of media literacy Mike Dilion said. 

“It’s a theory in media called uses and gratifications,” Dillon said. “We all use media, but we get different gratifications out of it. We tend to respond to satire that validates our own point of view,” whether that is the intended message or not.

Similar reactions have happened with TV series and movies such as The Boys, American Psycho, and Fight Club, with some audiences idolizing the behavior that is being portrayed instead of recognizing the way it’s being criticized.

Modern media environments make these misunderstandings more common, Dilion said.

“The media ecosystem that we exist in, people just react to things immediately without really processing and thinking about them,” Dilion said.

Helldivers 2 draws inspiration from the 1997 film Starship Troopers, Erik Kain writes in the blog Diabolical. That film focuses on critiques of fascism instead of patriotism.

But Helldivers 2 is similar to Starship Troopers with exaggerated propaganda, militarism, and a critique of nationalism. The game is “basically the movie version of Starship Troopers as a live-service video game,” Kain said.

The film’s references to military broadcasts and imagery are exaggerated to show the normalization of extremist beliefs. The satire is shown through many propaganda advertisements, slogans, or messaging.

The video game mimics some clothing, scenes, and concepts from the film, such as the opening cinematic and soldiers’ clothing. 

Much like Helldivers 2, Starship Troopers also has been misunderstood by audiences as an action comedy rather than a satirical critique. The over-the-top violence entertained the viewers, leading some to miss the deeper criticisms.

“Watching it now, the satire is overt and hard to miss,” political film theorist James Walters said in an article in The I Paper. “So it’s interesting that, when it was released, not all reviewers picked up on (the film) as a satire at all.”

Given the risk of misinterpretation, it is the duty of the creator to make the messaging of the media more clear, Dodd, the Baldwin junior, said.

But Cormier, also from Baldwin, disagreed. He believes that despite the risks, the creators should not be obligated to make it blatantly clear.

“Once you put the responsibility on the creator, it ends up dampening the message,” Cormier said.

Dilion believes ensuring that the satire is easily interpretable can spoil what makes it interesting.

“When I read something in a paper and it’s labeled as satire, it’s like telling me the punchline of the joke before telling me the joke,” Dilion said. “If you make every idea so simple that even the dumbest person can understand it, then we wouldn’t have much of a discourse in our society.”

Satire has long been used to criticize politics, culture, and social habits, but audiences do not always interpret it the same way. Some viewers engage with the deeper meanings, while others focus on the entertainment only. Either way, the media can reach a wider audience and make more revenue, according to an article in journal Communication Theory.

The article describes “strategic ambiguity” as a way for satire to appeal to large audiences even with different interpretations. Communicators sometimes intentionally make messages with many plausible interpretations, so it can gain attention from different groups and broader appeal.

And gaining a broader audience means more revenue for the creators of the video game, movie, or TV show.

Dilion said that understanding satire sometimes requires a certain level of prior knowledge and experience with identifying satire.

“To appreciate satire, you have to know what it is and be able to recognize it when you see it,” Dilion said.

People respond positively to satire that supports their own beliefs, while rejecting anything that challenges their beliefs, Dilion said. This means that good satire frequently is defined by whether the audience agrees with the message rather than if it’s well designed.

Satire “falls into that polarizing sphere of, does it fit into our bubble? If it does, it’s good. If it doesn’t, it’s not good,” Dilion said.

Even when audiences disagree on the meaning, satire continues to remain influential across games, movies, and television.

“Sometimes satire can tell the truth (in a way) that telling the truth right out straight doesn’t necessarily accomplish,” Dilion said.