Highlights

  • Helldivers 2 pays homage to Mass Effect by including a reference to Commander Shepard's famous line about their favorite store on the Citadel.
  • An in-game review in Helldivers 2's Super Store mimics Shepard's endorsement message, showing that the developers are aware of the similarities between the two games.
  • Fans are now speculating about other Easter eggs in Helldivers 2 and joking about how the Reapers would fare against the game's militaristic Super Earth government.

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.

Helldivers 2 PlayStation Store page firefight key art upscaled
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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 character path can gain discounts by recording an endorsement message. This message is identical in every store, and the player will periodically hear the message play on the loudspeakers as they return to the Citadel shops. Because of this, the phrase itself has become a popular meme among Mass Effect fans.

The Citadel and mass relay in Mass Effect

It seems that Commander Shepard’s viral Citadel endorsement message has spread beyond the Mass Effect universe, as it is now being used by random shoppers in Helldivers 2’s Super Store. Even better, the user who left this in-game review is named Specctrei, itself a clear shout-out to the Spectre program that Shepard joined at the beginning of Mass Effect. This discovery has prompted fans to start joking about how the Reapers would have fared against the overwhelming armies of Helldivers 2’s more militaristic Super Earth government and wonder if there are any more interesting Easter eggs to find.