One Helldivers 2 Dev Is In Charge Of The War Like A D&D Dungeon Master

thegamer.com:

Helldivers 2 doesn't follow a traditional mission structure. You're not going from level to level of increasing intensity until you reach the end, you're fighting alongside the community to liberate planets across a vast galaxy in an ongoing war dictated by a dungeon master.

"We have an actual person with the job title of Game Master," Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt said in an interview with PC Gamer, revealing that his name is "Joel".

There have been some sudden moments where maybe one planet was too easy or one was too hard and [Joel] had to get up in the middle of the night.

"We have a lot of systems built into the game where the Game Master has a lot of control over the play experience," Pilestedt continued. "And as part of the roadmap, there are things that we want to keep secret because we want to surprise and delight."

In Dungeons & Dragons, a Dungeon Master is much more hands-on with each individual. They lead the game, weaving a story that you unravel at the table. You ask them if you can do X, and they say that Y happens.

Because Helldivers 2 is juggling hundreds of thousands of players, this incredibly hands-on approach isn't possible in the same way, but Joel is still able to organically weave a story by looking at the bigger picture and reacting in real time.

We look at the individual planets as, 'There was a planet that we made, that was good fun,' and we have made so many of them. But the community's attachment to each planet is significant … So one of the things we're looking at internally is how can we reconsider these planets to become more of a character going forward?

For instance, Arrowhead didn't expect the community to be so effective against the first wave of Terminid planets, so Joel made it part of the story; "In his infinite wisdom, [he] decided, 'What happens when a faction wins a portion of a war? Well, they mine everything.' That's where the incendiary mine segment came from.'"

That explains the free day of incendiary mine stratagems. In