Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead has addressed player concern that it might leave the game behind to focus on its next project, dubbed “Game 6.”
As spotted by VG247, CEO Shams Jorjani spoke to fans in the official Helldivers Discord following the explosive launch of the full-scale Illuminate invasion this week.
“The wonderful thing is that thanks to the amazing support of you FINE people Arrowhead’s future is quite bright and we have the freedom to explore some really cool concepts that we couldn’t have otherwise. Game 6 (our next project) will happen the way it will happen thanks to you,” Jorjani said.
That seemingly innocuous quote sparked concern from one fan who said it suggested Arrowhead was “already abandoning a good chunk of dev time and money from Helldivers 2.”
Jorjani quickly shut that down, insisting: “Nah. It’s ALL Helldivers 2 for now. A very, very small team will spin up something later this year and go at it sloowly. Helldivers is our main focus and will be for a loooong time.”
So, how long does Jorjani expect content updates for Helldivers 2 to last?
“As long as you folks keep playing and buying Super Credits we can keep it going,” Jorjani said, pointing to Helldivers 2’s virtual currency that’s used to buy Premium Warbonds. “Last summer we were kinda screwing the pooch so it looked like we wouldn’t be able to keep the train going for a long time – but we turned the ship around, you support us a lot so it’s looking bright.”
And here’s an interesting follow-up comment from Jorjani, in response to one fan who called on Arrowhead to make its next game available in all regions and avoid the region-locking purchase debacle the Sony-published Helldivers 2 has suffered from: “The next game is 100% funded by ourselves so we’ll call 100% of those shots.” That suggests Arrowhead isn’t going with Sony or any other company for its next game, which in turn suggests it’s not Helldivers 3.
Speaking of Game 6 and how its development will (hopefully) differ from the “rough”, eight-year slog that was Helldivers 2, Jorjani said Arrowhead wants to nail the “core s**t” early on before moving on to making the rest of the game this time around.
“For the most part of the development cycle games plain suck,” Jorjani explained. “Very seldom are they truly fun from the get-go. And for Helldivers taking eight years to make it was rough for the longest time. But it came together in the end. The ONLY way to know is to playtest playtest playtest.
“For our next game we’re doing things in a much smarter way and nailing a lot of the core s**t early on (as you should) then make the rest.”
All this tallies with previous comments from Arrowhead developers, who’ve said they want Helldivers 2 to last for years to come. Let’s remember, Helldivers 2 is the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time, with an astonishing 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks. It is a record no first-party Sony-developed game will likely ever beat. But so much has happened since that initial explosive release: a dramatic U-turn on PSN account requirements on Steam, review-bomb campaigns, and a community often at war with Helldivers 2 itself as nerfs and buffs either go too far or not far enough. So you’d be forgiven for wondering whether enthusiasm for Helldivers 2 at Arrowhead might have waned.
But Alex Bolle, production director on Helldivers 2, recently told IGN “we want it to be around for years and years and years to come.”
“How do we stay true to the Helldivers 2 fantasy, challenging enough that we keep making amazing new features and new systems and all that while we stay true to who we are? And I think it’s something that is so motivating for the years to come.
“The more we figure out how to thrive in a live environment, and we still have a way to go to figure out a lot of things around that, the more we can let creativity loose on new systems that we would’ve never thought about a year ago when we released. I’ve worked on live games before and it’s where you feel like you have something you can figure out: what if I would do this cool thing I’ve seen in other games and adapt it to our sauce, that still makes it true to ourselves? I’m looking forward to this moment.”
To that end, recent leaks (one from PlayStation itself) point to the imminent release of Super Earth as a playable map, as the Illuminate eventually make it to our home planet.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
