Arrowhead Gaming Studios’ 2024 game, Helldivers 2, has been making huge waves in the gaming industry. The game features an exciting co-op combat experience with a fast pace that puts many popular first-person shooter franchises to shame, but one of the main reasons behind the game’s success is Arrowhead’s response to feedback.
Since its release, gamers have faced many bugs but Arrowhead has rolled out updates to fix things and is constantly working on new things to add to their game. Arrowhead Studios CEO and creative director Johan Pilestedt recently revealed how they make the game engaging and less boring for its fans: making a pop-culture reference and adding a twist to it.
Helldivers 2 boss Johan Pilestedt explains how they create Stratagems
Johan Pilestedt, CEO & Creative Director at Arrowhead Studios, recently appeared for an interview with Heidi Kemps for PlayStation Blog and explained how they keep the gamers hooked to their 2024 game, Helldivers 2,
“Generally, Stratagems are based on real-world examples – We’re interested in both war movies and pop culture, so in some cases the concept may be inspired by a pop-culture reference, but realism is added by taking real world guns and applying them to the mechanics – All-in-all, stratagems are generally designed in an iterative and sprint based fashion. We play the game and get bored by the current selection, so we add another one. Maybe a designer that has an idea, such as the walking barrage, or something more advanced”
If you have never played the game, Stratagems are essential for winning. They can be called in by putting in a series of directional inputs, and help in the form of extra ammo, different weapons, orbital strikes, automatic turrets, etc.
Helldivers 2 managed to sell over 1 million units within the first month of its release
Certainly, Helldivers 2 is gaining an advantage over its competitors because of its pop-culture references. Pilestedt recently had an interaction with actor Casper Van Dien that seemingly confirmed the crossover between Helldivers 2 and 1997’s Starship Troopers.
Helldivers 2 had some initial hiccups but the game was swiftly fixed with constant updates. In the same interview, Pilestedt confirmed that they have plans for the franchise’s expansion,
“We have grand plans, but we do not want to make any early announcements as we love to surprise and delight players with new stuff. What I can say is that we have a massive list of quality of life improvement ideas that we source from the community.”
Atfer being in production for 4 years, Helldivers 2 was released for PlayStation 5 and Windows on 8 February 2024 and has successfully sold over 1 million units within the first month of its release.
