Helldivers 2, regardless of having some latest rising pains, is nonetheless an total triumph for developer Arrowhead Video games. You do not simply get a whole bunch of 1000’s of concurrent gamers a mere smattering of months after launch with out, you understand, being a great videogame.
Helldivers 2 is a significant success now that its launch is within the rear-view—with an quantity of copies bought bigger than the inhabitants of Sweden and former CEO, now CCO Johan Pilestedt dreaming of the studio turning into subsequent FromSoftware. However issues did not all the time look so shiny, as revealed in a chat Pilestedt gave at Nordic Recreation 2024 this 12 months.
“We acquired requested if we wished to do a sequel to Helldivers, and we mentioned ‘yeah, I feel that seems like lots of enjoyable, as a result of it’s going to be simple’. We already know the sport … might most likely do it in [three years],” reveals Pilestedt, earlier than clicking to the following slide the place a large ‘WRONG’ stamp layers over his presentation. “Yeah. This was incorrect. That is an incorrect assumption.”
Pilestedt proceeds to drop the 500kg bomb that Helldivers 2 took, as an alternative, 7 years, 11 months, and 26 days to create—over twice so long as the meant growth time.
“How can we take a recreation that was presupposed to be in growth for 3 years, and nearly find yourself at eight? And the way did we handle to outlive throughout that point?” Pilestedt asks. “Apparently, recreation growth is difficult, so they are saying—and the rationale why recreation growth is difficult is that it is not a straight line.”
Pilestedt presents a growth cycle fraught with industry-standard issues, the sort that usually lock studios right into a endless rut of growth hell: “It’s iterative. It’s important to change your thoughts. It’s important to retry issues, and evolve issues, and lots of instances you strive various things and are available again to the unique design as a result of that was clearly the most effective one.”
However there have been additionally different components, as Pilestedt lays out.
Helldivers 2 skilled fast progress from a studio of “round 10 individuals. In direction of the back-end of the mission, we have been 16” to a “group of some 35 people … we have been nonetheless retaining our small group methods of working.” The issue solely grew with the group’s dimension, going from 40, to 60, to over 100 builders over the course of the sport’s growth.
“It creates not solely chaos inside a mission, however chaos inside the working circumstances of the corporate … it turns into a vicious cycle when this stuff will not be handled appropriately.” In the end, Pilestedt says the group’s reluctance to go “company” was an enormous a part of why there was a lot team-scaling jetlag:
“We wanna be a ‘hang around on the terrace and have a beer type of firm’,” he explains, although he does not assume these issues are mutually unique—the organisational construction, processes, and correct planning “truly assist and guarantee we are able to retain that … fortunately, over time, we managed to beat this.”
Lastly, Pilestedt identifies the “pitfall” of “transferring targets … we made a extremely very nice prototype of the sport, and we agreed along with PlayStation that, you understand what? If we simply doubled the finances, it is going to be even higher.” He argues that there have been moments like that the place issues “appeared good, however the correct penalties weren’t considered.
“We had this mentality from being in a small studio the place we mainly mentioned sure to any problem as a result of we knew that we might do it. However the issue is that, abruptly, when you may’t do it anymore, that begins biting you within the ass.”
All of this, Pilestedt says, triggered the group to fall behind in some ways in which have been catastrophic by way of assembly deadlines—”we by no means stopped to catch up”—earlier than saying that “grit, camaraderie and compassion” acquired his group by means of the darkish instances: Refusing to stop, fostering belief between designers on the group, and having compassion for his or her gamers.
“That’s the reason why we stand up within the morning—daily we consider these avid gamers which are perhaps going by means of a tough time, and once they can play our recreation, perhaps that provides them solace in a second that might in any other case be arduous.”