Helldivers 2 CEO promises they’re investing “more” than ever to improve the game’s mysterious engine

Helldivers 2 soldier standing in new cyberstan

Published:

23 April 2026

Last Updated: 23 April 2026

By:

Helldivers 2 is technically built on a defunct game engine: Autodesk Stingray. Currently in use by just two studios, Arrowhead Game Studios and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide developer FatShark, some have pinned the game’s history of technical issues on its engine.

Arrowhead has been clear that there were issues with building Helldivers 2 on Autodesk Stingray during early development. Game director Johan Pilestedt confirmed the issues back in 2024, saying: “Out crazy engineers had to do everything with no support to build the game to parity with other engines”.

In a prior discussion with fans earlier this year, Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani explained that the team “underinvested” in the game’s engine during development. This has resulted in the large number of technical issues that the game has seen since launch including high CPU usage, frequent crashes, and other issues.

“We’ve underinvested in our tech that we’re now finally doing something about,” Jorjani said at the time. The CEO explained that the team is “still not happy and things can/will be better” in the future.

In a more recent discussion with fans, Jorjani told fans that the game’s engine is not the main issue behind the game’s technical issues. The CEO explained that “an engine is as good as what you put into it”, confirming that the game will continue to improve as Arrowhead continues to invest in continued improvements to its own tools.

“It’s a fine engine,” Jorjani explained. “We’ve just not invested enough in keeping up ship shape. We’re doing more there now than ever.” This comes after the game’s horrific technical state last year following the release of the game’s first Into the Unjust campaign which caused many months of fixes alongside a massive reduction in file size.

Arrowhead has confirmed that a large number of quality-of-life improvements to Helldivers 2 over the coming months in the form of an official roadmap. While Arrowhead has confirmed that there will not be adding major features such as clans, the studio is also working on “meaningful progression” that will be more than just “grinding for XP”, although it’s not clear when that will be implemented.

Helldivers 2’s next major update, Exo Experts, is scheduled to launch on April 28, 2026, bringing two new mechs to the game alongside new weapons and armour.

About The Author

Lewis White

Lewis White is a veteran games journalist with over a decade in the field. Starting with beloved Xbox website ICXM/XboxMAD, Lewis became the Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser before becoming the Editor in Chief of StealthOptional and Gfinityesports. Lewis later jumped to By Gamers For Gamers where he jumped to become EIC of VideoGamer and the host of the New VideoGamer Podcast prior to the website’s acquisition.

Over the years, Lewis has also seen long-form investigative pieces published in outlets such as Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, Retro Gamer, Nintendo Life, and EDGE. Now, as the Editor in Chief of FRVR Blog, Lewis strives to bring the same level of quality journalism with interview-led content to the site in both written and audio form with the FRVR Podcast.

With a First Degree BA Hons in Games Journalism and Public Relations, Lewis has been a stable part of the British games press for over a decade, and has frequently displayed his love of Halo, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and other games pretty much everywhere he’s worked. And FRVR is no different.

See author's posts