Helldivers 2 'Should Feel Like When You Are Going Into a Dark Basement', Dev Says
Helldivers 2’s surprisingly huge launch has already seen millions of players across PlayStation 5 and PC dip into its co-op focused third-person action. It’s a smash hit and easily publisher Sony’s biggest ever PC game launch. But while Helldivers 2 is certainly a game everybody should play, it can often be a brutal, unforgiving experience, with floods of hard-to-kill alien robots and bugs descending upon players in increasingly tough waves.
In short, Helldivers 2 sends players down onto dangerous worlds in which death is never far away. It’s called Helldivers for a reason! And on the PlayStation Blog, the boss of developer Arrowhead has explained why that’s exactly how things should be, and why the game’s difficulty encourages co-op play, even though solo play is possible.
“I believe that a good co-op game forces players to play together, but a great one makes players want to play together,” Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt said. “Helldivers 2 should feel like when you are going into a dark basement – you want a friend by your side. And we could only achieve this by creating the sensation that no single person can do this alone — even though some crazy people out there have done so!”
Related to the game’s difficulty and co-op play is Helldivers 2’s friendly fire mechanic, which is always turned on. Based on what Pilestedt says in the interview, it seems unlikely Arrowhead will add a friendly fire toggle any time soon, as it’s a core component of Helldivers 2’s chaotic and often hilarious emergent gameplay.
“The most important thing when we make games is believability,” Pilestedt said. “Things should be consistent in the game world and therefore, we must have friendly fire. If your bullets can kill enemies, and the enemies can kill you, then logic dictates that your bullets must also be able to kill your friends. This kind of design is inherently systematic, where we create a rule set that applies to everything in the game world, with minor exceptions.
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