Helldivers 2 boss wants to make Arrowhead 'the next FromSoftware or Blizzard'
Helldivers 2 is a massive success, and while that's come at a cost—former Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt, who's now moved into a mainly creative role, told GamesIndustry that they received «horrifying» threats from some players—it's also helped inspire some major ambitions for the future of Arrowhead. Pilestedt isn't looking to take the studio public, though, but he does have hopes that it could one day become «the next FromSoftware or Blizzard.»
Among many other things, that will mean adapting to the spotlight. For the most part, Pilestedt says that interactions with the community have been positive, but it hasn't been perfect, of course: Concerns about game balance are something the studio has recently resolved to address, and of course there was the big mess with the post-launch requirement to sign up for a PSN account, which cost a lot of goodwill.
Pilestedt said the studio had some experience with managing that sort of crisis thanks to its previous releases, including «the horrible launch of Magicka» in 2011. «Me and Shams [Jorjani, Arrowhead's new CEO, who was an associate producer on Magicka] recognised that we had to interact with the community, talk to them in an honest way, and tell them what’s going on as much as we could. And then take action immediately to resolve the issues.» But, he added, that was «a much smaller scale. It is higher stakes this time.»
That massive increase in the size of the player base has inevitably led to an increase in difficulties managing the crowd. «The big difference now, which is horrifying, is the amount of threats and rude behaviour that people in the studio are getting from some really shitty individuals within the community,» Pilestedt said. «That’s something new we have to deal with.»
Jorjani believes some of that toxicity arises from Arrowhead's approach to making games: The studio's motto, emblazoned in large letters on its website, is literally «A game for everyone is a game for no one.»
«I think it’s one of the big
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