Helldivers 2 CEO says after success, the goal now is simple—'make this the best live game you've ever played'

A huge part of Helldivers 2's appeal is the game's ongoing galactic war, a push-and-pull conflict between the players and the enemy factions that sees planets liberated, territory lost, and casualties on a multi-planetary scale. The conflict is guided and shaped by major orders, which identify targets and offer rewards, with yesterday's example being a minor classic: the Helldivers were given a week to squish 2 billion bugs, a number so unfathomable some wondered whether it were possible. They did it in 14 hours. 

There are many more layers to how Helldivers 2 is unfolding the game's narrative and surprises, such as how mechs began 'leaking' in a coordinated fashion before appearing in the game for everyone. The developers themselves have in some cases become personalities: the biggest by far is game master Joel, who's become a community meme (if anything goes wrong, blame Joel), but almost as prominent is Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt, who regularly engages players with a winning combination of straightforward answers and Super Earth propaganda.

We're dealing with the former today, after Pilestedt popped up in response to TheGentlemanCEO (presumably no relation) posting a topic about the game's subreddit «riding [a] fine line between constructive input and whiny entitlement». OP goes on to list several ways in which they felt people were misunderstanding the nature of live service development, and Arrowhead's responsibilities to its partners (such as Sony).

«I appreciate your sentiment and post,» wrote Pilestedt in response. «Let me add some context. Arrowhead is independently owned by people working at the studio and not swayed by shareholders in the traditional sense. Of course we are in a great partnership with Sony where we agree on targets to hit etc. But there isn't a forcing function or requirement per se.»

Part of the inspiration for the original topic is an ongoing community argument about certain bugs that need fixing, and whether these should be