Arrowhead Game Studios has received near unparalleled backlash over the past few months over the state of Helldivers 2. Following the release of the Into the Unjust update, the quality of the game saw a drastic dip with frequent crashing, major performance drops and horrendous glitches.
After months of updates, Helldivers 2 is finally back to regular content with the new Python Commandos warbond adding new weapons, stratagems and more to the game. While the work is far from done, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani has explained that studio morale is now “much better” following the updates.
Earlier this year, when the issues regarding Helldivers 2 reached boiling point, Jorjani asked players to not review bomb the game as they had done numerous times before. While the game did see a large influx of negative reviews from fans, recent updates have since caused reviews to return to positive reception.
When asked about the demoralisation of the dev team on Discord, Jorjani explained that it has improved since the recent Helldivers 2 patches. “It’s much better now,” they said. “Steam score is trending upwards, development is progressing and you folks seem to like the upcoming warbond.”
Helldivers 2 was made in a now-unsupported engine that was licensed to Arrowhead, and there’s quite a lot of tech debt behind the scenes which has caused a number of issues. In a separate Discord message, the Arrowhead CEO explained that this the game’s tech debt is “better but still looming” with more work to be done.
The biggest step forward for Helldivers 2 is something that players won’t necessarily see. Behind the scenes, the team has worked to put new processes in place that will mean future updates shouldn’t “bork quality” when they’re added to the game.
Helldivers 2 production director Alex Bolle confirmed that prior updates would often add features “at the very last minute” which caused major issues. “For the longest time our features would be considered ready and implemented in the release build at the very last minute,” Bolle said. “We’re working with the teams to stop that.”
Right now, Helldivers 2 is in a much better place compared to the Into the Unjust update, but there’s still many more months of patches to come.
