The original Helldivers released in early 2015 and was a twin-stick top-down shooter while its sequel, Helldivers 2, is primarily a third person shooter. However, the game does allow you to briefly switch to the first person POV under the right circumstances, and there are some settings that can make the whole experience easier in the heat of battle.
UPDATED April 16
Helldivers 2 Switch To First Person
On PC, the default keybind to switch to first person is the middle mouse button, while on PlayStation 5 players would need to click in the right thumbstick. However both require you to aim down sights with the weapon first, if your aim setting is set to ‘hold’ the.
Additionally, with mouse & keyboard, if you’ve modified your aim setting to ‘press’ (tap) rather than ‘hold’, the camera will not switch. Instead try Dynamic Aim Mode, which will give you first person ADS directly with a press/tap, and third person with hold. This can be found in Settings -> Options -> Gameplay, towards the bottom, as pictured above, and will be greyed out if a controller is even plugged in, even though you may not be actively using it.
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All told, this is the only time you can switch to first person mode in Helldivers 2, aside from a random bug that lasts for a few seconds. If you’re hoping to be able to traverse the map and do anything besides shooting in first person, you’re out of luck, at least until the developers decide to give in to the demands of the vocal sections of the online community.
Having said that, the key/button sequence required to shoot in first person may annoy some players, so there are some settings that can be modified to default to first person when aiming down sights, based on weapon, without the extra step.
Helldivers 2 First Person Settings
Aside from what is mentioned above regarding the use of Dynamic Aim Mode, there are also some settings to make use of first person by default based on weapon selection. This can be found in Settings -> Options -> Gameplay as pictured above. While ‘Global’ may seem like the obvious choice, it is actually recommended that you use ‘Per Weapon’ instead.
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This is because the first person mechanics appear to have been a design afterthought in Helldivers 2, and can cause some buggy behaviour with certain weapons. Your mileage may vary, but the Marksmen/Sniper often miss entirely especially while standing near or behind cover.
Those are all the settings related to effectively using FPS mode in Helldivers 2.
