Helldivers 2 has recently enjoyed a massive balance patch, upgrading weapon damage across the board, reducing the amount of heavy enemies in favour of more mooks, and loads more stuff I'm unable to fit into an opening paragraph.
Given that Helldivers 2's former CEO Johan Pilestedt has not only stated he wants to reassess the game's balance, but also taken a technical demotion to become the studio's chief creative officer, it might be easy to credit this latest wave of tweaks to the new auteur's divine influence. 'Pilestedt's rolled up his sleeves, and is sorting things out!'
Alas, it takes quite a lot of people to make a videogame, and Pilestedt wants you to know it. "Thank you, but I have to clarify that I did not cook," the now-CCO wrote in a reply to a very complimentary Reddit thread last week (thanks, GamesRadar), "I have merely given a gentle nudge. The ideas and execution for this is the teams."
- Arrowhead CEO reassures Helldivers 2 players in the wake of Johan Pilestedt's sabbatical that if they can keep the game 'going for 10 years, we will'
- Helldivers 2 continues its streak of turning missteps into in-game lore: After a major feature was paused for 24 hours, Super Earth says 'nothing out of the ordinary has happened'
Five days later, and the unofficial accolades are still coming—leading Pilestedt to take to his Twitter and re-affirm that he is not the chosen one, writing: "I've seen a lot of people give me lots of cred for this patch as if I am the sole person responsible. I want to make it clear that the team are the ones that made it happen. Without their effort, design sensibilities, diligence and passion none of this would have been possible."
While I do think there's every chance Pilestedt is being humble here, and that it's very possible that careful leadership has helped steer the good ship Helldivers 2 in the right direction, he's also just right—Arrowhead employs over 100 people and any game, especially a live service one with a lot of moving parts, is monstrously complicated to balance, requiring all hands on deck.
As a matter of fact, let's go ahead and loosely tie some red strings across some pins on a corkboard: Helldivers 2 publicly announced its intention to make less frequent, more detailed patches late May, while Pilestedt announced his new role at around the same time. I'd very much wager that, given the patches' size, the development team have been working on its constituent parts for more than 22 days.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the studio as a whole has chosen to move in this new direction with him anyway—the game's fateful PSN network review scare and a less-than-well received Warbond are both likely to have rocked the boat.
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