![Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Games has a new CEO—with Johan Pilestedt taking on a different role to direct ‘100% of my focus [to] the game and community’](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Fo5jxQn3ETHrANqTVsyD9-1200-80.png "Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Games has a new CEO—with Johan Pilestedt taking on a different role to direct ‘100% of my focus [to] the game and community’")
Johan Pilestedt, soon-to-be-former CEO of Arrowhead Video games, will likely be stepping all the way down to tackle new duties on the firm as revealed by the person himself on Twitter at present.
This transfer comes off the again of a troublesome month for Helldivers 2, as the sport suffered large backlash over a controversial choice—courtesy of Sony—to require PC customers to enroll in a PSN account with a view to proceed taking part in the sport.
That is not the one signal of hassle in intergalactic paradise, although. A combination of feedback from Pilestedt (in addition to dev crew sentiment handed on by neighborhood managers) paints an image of a studio re-evaluating itself within the wake of large success, and trying to possibly decelerate the tempo.
That is to not say the rapid-fire deployment of Warbonds and new content material in Helldivers 2 hasn’t been thrilling, however I am glad to see I wasn’t off the mark after I mentioned the studio was burning the candle at each ends, wrestling with steadiness points and technical difficulties since day one. It looks like all people wants a breather.
Pilestedt is trying to “spend MORE time with the crew and 100% of my give attention to the video games and neighborhood!” as Arrowhead’s Chief Artistic Officer—which is a commendable transfer, contemplating that CCOs are likely to rank underneath CEOs on the company ladder. Pilestedt appears dedicated to main from the entrance.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Pilestedt additional outlined his ideas behind the change. “I realised that working an organisation of over 100 folks,” he causes, would put him between a rock and a tough place: “I’ll [have to choose] between deepening my love for sport creation, or the enterprise observe.”
Changing Pilestedt will likely be Shams Jorjani—who gained over a decade expertise at Paradox interactive earlier than leaving the company in 2021. “I reached out to Shams,” explains Pilestedt, “We had a lunch, and we requested him that if I used to be to rethink working Arrowhead for the subsequent decade, and I wanted to rent a brand new CEO, would he have an interest?
Jorjani himself has excessive hopes for the long run as Arrowhead Video games’ resident enterprise man: “What I will be bringing to the desk is organisation and management … It is lots of the, frankly, boring enterprise administration stuff that could be a mandatory a part of working an organization, which is difficult to do whenever you’re additionally juggling the chairman’s hat and the inventive director’s hat and in addition being the one who’s within the trenches doing lots of the designing that Johan has been doing through the years.”
Pilestedt has at all times been remarkably outspoken and concerned locally for a CEO—cheekily hinting at upcoming stratagems, denying the existence of flying bugs, and stepping in when relations between the neighborhood and its improvement crew received a bit bushy on the sport’s Discord. In different phrases, this shift makes a sure form of sense:
“I lastly got here to the correct conclusion that I must observe my coronary heart,” says Pilestedt. “It isn’t solely proper for me, but it surely’s additionally proper for the organisation. Having a reluctant CEO just isn’t one thing that can prove that nicely, I feel.”