For Democracy!

Cosplay is an interesting hobby, and over the last two decades that I've been involved in it, it's undergone some fascinating changes. One thing that I've noted (and wrote about in my book, Cosplay: A History) is how cosplayers are often operating on a cycle, where you'll see a handful of popular costumes pop up on the convention scene, because that's the big story of the year.

Some of those costumes have included things like Harley Quinn from various DC movies, Eddie Munson from Stranger Things, Spartans from 300, and so forth. One of this year's big stories? The video game Helldivers 2, which has taken over my Instagram and Facebook feeds in recent months, and which seems poised to be a huge costume this year.

The game is a sequel to the 2015 game Helldivers, which is set in the distant future as humanity fights to protect Super Earth from alien enemies. It draws plenty of inspiration from Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers (and the 1997 film adaptation by Paul Verhoeven), with players fighting as soldiers working to uphold humanity's existence under a "managed democracy." As an MMO shooter, Helldivers 2 leans heavily into the satirical propaganda that defined the film, and players are tasked with working together on missions fending off giant alien bugs and robots.

Shortly after its release (Playstation and PC) in February, Helldivers 2 exploded in popularity, with players sharing clips of the action as they blow up aliens and often, each other.

John Rodriguez is a cosplayer and prop maker in California (who I recently spoke with about his involvement in Apple's Mandalorian commercial) who's been chronicling his work to put together a squad of Helldivers for this year's convention season.

Rodriguez became interested in cosplay around 2016 when he attended his first convention. He enjoyed the experience and began building costumes of his own. He ended up joining the 501st Legion and Mandalorian Mercs and has found work making props and costumes for a variety of projects. He noted that he's recently gotten into Helldivers, and that the game's main appeal has been its cooperative nature: "you're playing WITH other players and not against them," he told me. "It's US vs them (them being bots, etc...) The amount of camaraderie that is built off that type of interaction is contagious."

Shortly after the game's release, he began working on building a costume of the B-01 Tactical Armor from the games, printing off parts from Yosh Studios and Dungeons & Starships. Hoping to get a squad together for this year's San Diego Comic Con, he announced that he'd be opening up a kit run for costumers looking to make their own. After getting the various armor components printed, he explained that he then moved on to make molds to cast the armor in a semi-rigid urethane resin.

The components are pretty straightforward for someone to assemble: a helmet, armor that covers one's chest, shoulders, arms, thighs, knees, and shins, along with a black uniform and cape.

He isn't alone in making the armor: plenty of other cosplayers, like 3D Printing studio/shop Galactic Armory, have completed their own builds and produced tutorials for making armor for one's self.

Rodriguez noted that part of the appeal of this costume was that "you get to live out the game in person with three other friends," and that there was just enough variation between characters that cosplayers can "make them unique while still being uniform with your team."

He turned out a team of troopers this year at San Diego Comic Con, along with a number of others. We’ll have to see if the game’s popularity will endure and if we’ll see them deploying to more cons in the future.