Helldivers 2 inventive director Johan Pilestedt has introduced he has gone on sabbatical go away and, when he returns, will begin work on developer Arrowhead’s subsequent sport.(*11*)
In a tweet, Pilestedt stated he’s spent 11 years working “round the clock” on the Helldivers mental property, beginning with the first Helldivers sport in 2013 and Helldivers 2 since early 2016.(*11*)
“Eleven years of working round the clock on the identical IP has made me put aside household, mates, and my beautiful spouse… and myself,” Pilestedt stated. “I’m going to take a while now to redeem what was misplaced from all of people who supported me for over a decade.(*11*)
“I’m positive my mates at Arrowhead will do their utmost in the meantime to ship wonderful stuff to Helldivers 2. After I’m again I’ll begin working on the subsequent Arrowhead sport.”(*11*)
Pilestedt was thrust into the headlines following Helldivers 2’s explosive launch in February 2024. Regardless of a raft of points the cooperative shooter grew to become PlayStation Studios’ fastest-selling sport of all time, shifting 12 million copies in simply 12 weeks. Helldivers 2 is so profitable that Sony is popping it right into a film.(*11*)
Pilestedt himself grew to become the face of Helldivers 2, usually wading into dialogue about the sport’s qualities and failings throughout social media, Reddit threads, and Discord. In Might final yr, Pilestedt revealed that Helldivers 2’s huge success had brought on an issue for the studio: extra group toxicity than it had ever had to take care of earlier than.(*11*)
Prior to the launch of Helldivers 2, Arrowhead had loved large hits with the first Helldivers sport and Magicka, however the success of Helldivers 2 raised the sport and the studio’s profile. “The large distinction now, which is horrifying, is the quantity of threats and impolite habits that individuals in the studio are getting from some actually shitty people inside the group,” Pilestedt informed G.biz. “That’s one thing new we’ve got to take care of.”(*11*)
When Helldivers 2 launched it confronted vital server points that made the sport unplayable for a lot of, sparking an preliminary backlash. Since then, Arrowhead has confronted complaints about the whole lot from weapon stability to low affect Premium Warbonds. However by far the largest backlash was sparked by Sony’s controversial determination to pressure PC players to hyperlink to a PlayStation Community account to play. Sony ultimately reversed its determination, however not earlier than a review-bombing marketing campaign savaged Helldivers 2 on Steam. Arrowhead group managers have stated the PSN backlash brought on employees to lose every week merely having to take care of the fallout.(*11*)
Amid Helldivers 2’s success, Pilestedt modified his place from Arrowhead CEO to chief inventive officer so he might focus extra on the studio’s video games in addition to its group. Changing Pilestedt as Arrowhead CEO was Shams Jorjani, former govt at fellow Swedish video games firm Paradox and writer of Magicka.(*11*)
There’s no phrase on Helldivers 2’s subsequent sport, however it appears seemingly we received’t see it for a while. In the meantime, Arrowhead continues to replace Helldivers 2, with the current addition of third enemy faction the Illuminate respiratory new life into the sport.(*11*)
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.(*11*)