Yesterday, Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt announced that he’s taking a sabbatical from game development, and that he’ll start working on Arrowhead’s next game when he returns. This got lots of players asking questions about the future of Helldivers 2 itself, and Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani’s now had a go at addressing those concerns.
As he pretty regularly does, Jorjani took to Helldivers 2’s official Discord server last night to field queries from the community and generally take the pulse of the community, with the discussion naturally turning to Pilestedt’s news, and whether it’ll mean anything for the ongoing support the studio’s current game gets going forwards.
Thankfully, and as the director suggested in his sabbatical announcement, it sounds like you’ve got nothing to worry about. “As long as people play, pay and we can build a business case around it, we’ll support it to hell and back,” Jorjani told one player asking if a date when Helldivers 2’s support will end, “If we can keep it going for 10 years, we will.”
As for rumours being spread among players that the news is tantamount to Pilestedt “quitting” on the game, the CEO explained: “Johan is just on an extended vacation. He’s never been on a proper vacation since the company was founded. We get six weeks of vacation per year – most swedes take four weeks off in the summer. He’s never done that. He’s got like 65 days saved up or something. He’s just beat.
“When he’s back, he’ll keep being the grandfather and sounding board for Helldivers and get going with a new project in due time. I don’t want to diminish Johan’s light – he’s amazing for Helldivers – but we have other amazing senior designers. Emil Englund, also a co-founder, has been instrumental in giving Arrowhead games their voice – he’s recently been on paternity leave and is returning more as well.”
Jorjani expanded on this in another reply, saying of Pilestedt’s senior creative role: “The vast majority of Helldivers is a team effort – it’s not one Jesus figure. Johan’s super power is developing concepts and games from the ground up. He was instrumental in getting Helldivers to where it needed to be – others carried it across the finish line.”
The CEO also echoed what Pilestedt’s previously suggested about how Arrowhead could handle things going forwards, in terms of growing Helldivers 2 into something that could be considered a ‘Helldiovers 3’ of sorts, vs just working on a follow-up. “Compare Helldivers 2 today to when it launched,” he wrote, “It’s so, so much more. Now imagine Helldivers 2 in 3 years. Tell me how that’s different from a hypothetical ‘Helldivers 3’.”
As for now, Jorjani told one player asking about a first person aim option for mounted guns and emplacements: “We have so, so so much stuff in the pipeline. We’re not only working on the next release, but the next and then next – and we constantly discuss different options back and forth, and for those who’ve been around they keep the memories of all the stuff that was planned but didn’t happen or changed.”
So, no end in sight for the fresh additions and changes to Helldivers 2 right now, even if one of its most well-known devs is gonna chill away from the Galactic War for a bit.
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