Whereas Arrowhead Recreation Studios has been retaining itself fairly busy with the post-launch help for co-op shooter Helldivers 2, studio CEO Shams Jorjani has revealed that, if it have been to begin work on a brand new sport, the pre-production crew could be a lot smaller than what it was for Helldivers 2. As caught by GamesRadar, Jorjani spoke about this on the official Helldivers 2 Discord server whereas answering a query concerning the studio’s future.
Whereas he didn’t speak about whether or not or not Arrowhead had made sufficient cash from Helldivers 2 to fund its subsequent sport by itself, saying as an alternative that “that’s fairly the large query,” he did go into the hypothetical of what making this subsequent sport would contain.
“One is that we begin pre-production with a small crew,” he mentioned about one of many many classes that the studio discovered from the event of Helldivers 2. “HD2 began with an enormous crew and that was baaaaad.”
Among the particulars surrounding the early growth of Helldivers 2 have been revealed again in March throughout a chat by CCO Johan Pilestedt throughout Recreation Developer’s Convention 2025. In his discuss, Pilestedt spoke about how the co-op shooter’s growth was a little bit of a large number, and whereas the studio was aiming to wrap up growth in 4 years, issues ended up taking virtually twice as lengthy.
“We have been throwing round some concepts, after which we bought a bit of cautious as a result of we’ve been burned earlier than by making video games which are a bit of bit too difficult for what we’re able to, after which having to crunch. It takes a lot power,” Pilestedt mentioned. “So we mentioned, ‘This will probably be simple. We are able to in all probability do it in 4 years.’”
He additionally famous that growth on the sport was not helped by the truth that Arrowhead had determined to not spend an excessive amount of time in pre-production.
“We already knew the place the sport was going to go and headed straight into manufacturing—it was a extremely, actually, actually unhealthy thought,” Pilestedt continued. “At all times do your homework earlier than you begin spending tens of millions and tens of millions and tens of millions of {dollars} in making a sport.”
As for what was initially deliberate for Helldivers 2, head of product testing Patrik Lasota had earlier revealed that the title was initially designed round having 5 gamers within the crew, quite than its present incarnation the place a crew can solely have 4 gamers.
“Helldivers 2 was initially designed for 5 individuals, truly,” mentioned Lasota. “That was Johann’s name as a result of he had ideas round ‘once you’re 4 individuals enjoying and a fifth joins you, immediately you’re a three-stack and a two-stack, and it creates this imbalance. But when it’s 5 individuals and somebody joins you then’re two three-stacks, and with three teams as an alternative one changing into a pair.’”
Nevertheless, the idea “simply didn’t work”, and Lasota mentioned that the fifth participant in a squad finally ends up simply “standing round, probably not collaborating within the motion.”
As for the way forward for Helldivers 2, Jorjani had talked about {that a} sequel to the sport “is hopefully a few years away”.
Within the meantime, Helldivers 2 is out there on PC and PS5. The sport can also be coming to Xbox Sequence X/S on August 26. Jorjani has mentioned that reward for the choice to deliver the title to Xbox ought to go to PlayStation. Take a look at our evaluation of the unique launch for extra particulars.
