Infinite stratagem glitches aside, Helldivers 2 really does seem to’ve pulled up from some pretty dire times after a chaotic first year. Even if it hadn’t, though, Arrowhead would’ve still very much enjoyed the uproaring success of its first months, which saw it hitting a massive all-time peak of over 450,000 players on Steam alone.
That success, per some Discord messages by Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani, has paved the way for an entirely self-funded game in the studio’s future. In response to a player asking Jorjani to make sure the studio’s next game is playable in all regions, he replied: “The next game is 100% funded by ourselves so we’ll call 100% of those shots.”
Said player was referring to the Sony PSN drama that saw a downright historic review bombing, and the game removed from sale in several companies. Now that Arrowhead’s got enough credits in the Super Earth bank, it won’t have to rely on Sony for a partnership anymore.
In an earlier message, Jorjani writes: “The wonderful thing is that thanks to the amazing support of you FINE people, Arrowhead’s future is quite bright and we have the freedom to explore some really cool concepts that we couldn’t have otherwise. Game six (our next project) will happen the way it will happen thanks to you.”
Does this mean, then, that Arrowhead has some proper lingering beef with Sony? While the studio has grappled with the gaming giant in the past, Jorjani reassures players that there’s no hard feelings, in a reply to one comment about the studio ‘ditching’ Sony now that it had got what it wanted.
“No way. Playstation are great. There would be no Helldivers if it wasn’t for them. We’re open to working with them again in the future. They are incredibly game/dev oriented. Solid partners. And this is me just saying it like it is. Not blowing smoke up their asses.”
While I’m sure Jorjani wants to maintain some degree of diplomacy, here—and I think Sony’s PSN decisions were absolutely baffling—he’s not entirely wrong. It’s easy to forget, but during the game’s early days of chaotic server crashes and infernal login queues, Sony was a consistent lifeline to an otherwise overwhelmed studio.
More cynically, Helldivers 2 took eight years to make. Its development, as per the words of now-CCO Johan Pilestedt, was chaotic—would the studio have survived its growing pains without Sony’s publishing aid to get it over the finishing line?
This isn’t to, well, blow “smoke up their asses”, as Jorjani puts it—merely to point out that game development is hard, long, unpredictable, and requires money. Sony definitely jeopardised Arrowhead’s rep in the past with its boneheaded choices, but it also published the game with money a pre-Helldivers 2 Arrowhead probably didn’t have to spend—if it’s a break, then I reckon Jorjani’s right to make it a clean one.
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