Arrowhead Games: "We want to be the next From Software or Blizzard"
Nobody expected the success of Helldivers 2.
The co-op third-person shooter, which was published by PlayStation and developed by Arrowhead Games, was released in February and has gone on to sell 12 million copies in three months. It is now PlayStation's fastest-selling game – bigger than God of War, or Spider-Man or Uncharted.
"Depending on who you are, you’ll always point to different things [as to why it was successful]," says Arrowhead's chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt. "If you’re a business exec at a major publisher, you’d say it is the live service element that keeps players coming back, and the cheaper price point. If you’re a game designer, you’ll point to the systematic nature of the game. If you’re an artist, you’ll talk about the day and night cycle, the destructible environments and the beautiful worlds. It’s the balance between all these elements.
"But speaking personally, I would say it’s the fact that we’re doing something with Helldivers that is outside of the inflection point that the games industry is heading towards. What you’re seeing through these cycles in the industry is people taking inspiration from each other, and building upon that. But that means people are building towards a single point, because you lose something through each iteration.
"With Helldivers, we made the strong decision that we’re not going to go with the status quo. We’re going to place ourselves outside of that by making a lot of mechanics that are generally not seen in games. We have friendly fire on, always. I think people are surprised that we make games this way. They’re surprised that the responsibility to not blow up your friends is on you."
For Pilestedt personally, the success of Helldivers 2 was the realisation of a dream he has had since he was eight years-old.
"I asked my dad ‘how do I make a video game company?’ And he said ‘Get really good grades’. Of course, that was a lie," he laughs.
The problem with realising a dream (albeit a good problem), is working out
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