Following months spent reacting to Helldivers 2’s unexpectedly big success, developer Arrowhead Recreation Studios lately appointed a brand new CEO, Shams Jorjani, to interchange Johan Pilestedt as a part of broader structural adjustments to the corporate. Now, Jorjani has taken to reddit to introduce himself to the Helldivers 2 neighborhood, and description the route for the corporate going ahead.
After offering a rundown of his historical past within the business (12 years working for Paradox, and a relationship with Arrowhead that stretches again to the unique Magicka), Jorjani gives a four-point plan for the way forward for Arrowhead. The primary of those explains the reasoning behind his appointment within the first occasion, which is “all about getting Pilen [Jorjani’s nickname for Pilestedt] nearer to the video games.” Whereas Pilestedt is not CEO, he stays the corporate’s chief inventive officer and chairman. Jorjani explains this function means “making new video games/prototypes, having extra time to play Helldivers, work[ing] nearer to Micke [Eriksson] our glorious Recreation Director and the various different designers/devs we now have.”
The second level is to keep up Arrowhead’s relationship with Sony and enhance Helldivers 2 “for as many individuals as attainable”. This looks like a tacit reference to these gamers at the moment unable to expertise Helldivers 2 resulting from Sony locking out sure international locations the place PlayStation Community is unavailable.
The third is probably the most important to current Helldivers 2 gamers, because it particulars the studio’s adjusted technique for updating the sport. “We knew it could be inconceivable to maintain up with demand and the insatiable starvation for extra enjoyable shit to do in/with HD2,” Jorjani writes. “Our singular focus as a studio is to set issues up in a sustainable approach in order that in the long run we are able to make extra and higher stuff. We’re constructing a little bit of scaffolding earlier than we are able to make an even bigger barn.”
On this topic, it is good to listen to that Arrowhead is adjusting itself to higher match the sport it has made. However I am not fully positive about Jorjani’s reasoning right here. If something, the issue has been that Helldivers 2 acquired too many updates in fast succession, making it exhausting to maintain up with and inflicting lots of debate concerning the recreation’s steadiness of enjoyable versus problem.
There’s additionally a extra apparent query to ask right here, particularly that if Arrowhead knew it could be ‘inconceivable to maintain up with’ Helldivers 2’s live-service calls for, then why construct the sport like that within the first place? Maybe Jorjani is referring to Arrowhead’s emotions after the sport’s launch, when it grew to become clear its success massively outweighed its proposed scope and the sources allotted to it. Nonetheless, I believe it is a bit of an odd factor to say.
Which brings us, considerably paradoxically, onto Jorjani’s last level—communication. He believes Arrowhead has set a “nice precedent” in being so open and direct with the neighborhood, and that Pilestedt will “hold being our BIG voice” whereas Jorjani may even be paying consideration, and collectively they are going to “share nicely articulated suggestions concerning the recreation internally”. He stresses that “It will not imply we’ll reply to each thread, whim, or loud voice—however we’re right here listening.”