Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 has been a huge success for over a year, despite the game’s continued technical issues. While these issues have caused Arrowhead to prepare “many more months” of patches to fix the title, it’s still been a continued success.
In fact, recent financial reports from PlayStation parent company Sony dubbed Helldivers 2 as a huge hit compared to Bungie’s troubled MMO Destiny 2, which the entertainment giant also owns. But what is the key to the game’s success?
Speaking to The Game Business Show, Arrowhead Studios CEO Shams Jorjani explained that the only magic solution to a continued success is to “give the players what they want”. For Arrowhead, not only did this involve continued updates with features players asked for, but also bringing the game to Xbox which wasn’t guaranteed.
“I’m super happy PlayStation wanted to do it,” Jorjani told the podcast. “Ultimately it was their strategy, we’re just along for the ride, but we’re so excited to be a part of it. And it’s always fun to be a part of gaming history.”
Alongside the game’s Xbox launch, Arrowhead was able to also bring a long-requested Halo 3: ODST crossover to the multiplayer game including cosmetics and functional weapons. This was a hugely successful release for the game, but something thousands of fans requested every day to the point where multiple mods were released for the title’s PC version.
“It turns out if you give the players what they want, they’ll be happy,” the Arrowhead CEO told the podcast. Although, for the creator, it does sting that the late Xbox release meant that a large portion of the game’s players have missed out on some of the most “historic moments in Helldivers history”. Such as the battle of Malevelon Creek.
“The Xbox Helldivers are coming and they’ve missed some of these, but they’re creating new ones together,” explaining that veteran players are now turning missed battles into classic stories like its their “own personal Vietnams or whatever”.
While cosmetics and Halo crossovers are always requested by fans, this is actually what players want. Those epic moments that make you feel part of Arrowhead’s universe, such as watching the Meridian black hole decimate Angel’s Venture, is the key draw of the game, and it’s what Arrowhead is focusing on for the future.
There’s also a number of other things Arrowhead is working on, such as fixing major issues in continued patches. Additionally, the studio is working to reduce the game’s massive PC file size, although it may mean abandoning support for Hard Disk Drives for players who still use them.
