New Helldivers 2 CEO says dev-player relationships are more 'doctor/patient', reveals that Arrowhead's taking a stethoscope to your Reddit posts and YouTube rants

Helldivers 2 has simmered down considerably after the stratospheric success of its launch—which started at an all-time peak of over 450,000 players and has since nestled into a cosy 24-hour peak of around 40,000 at the time of writing.

That's still pretty healthy numbers for a live-service game (and I don't think anyone expected Helldivers 2 to stay at 400,000 concurrents forever—those kinds of numbers are usually reserved for big MMORPGs, MOBAs, and the most popular shooters) but there have been some PSN, balance, and bug-related dramas that have certainly contributed to a dip in player count. This has all led to a more long-term strategy—because yeah, Arrowhead Games probably does need to slow down a bit.

As part of these changes, former CEO Johan Pilestedt elected to become the game's CCO instead in order to direct '100% of my focus [to] the game and community'. Replacing him is Shams Jorjani, who took to Twitter yesterday to share some snapshots from the studio's new workshops that confirm yes, the team is reading your Reddit threads.

«I asked Pilestedt to host the first of a series of [workshops] at the [Arrowhead Games] office on the topic of 'Us and Them: building healthy relationships with our players and partners',» explains Jorjani, wherein the team tries «to unpack learnings since launch.»

«A big takeaway,» Jorjani writes, «is that we as developers and players have a bit of a doctor/patient relationship. A patient comes in with knee pain thinking it's due to a particular 'thing'. We as doctors know it's not that 'thing'. The patient is wrong, but they are also STILL in pain.»

I get what Jorjani's saying. When it's a small dedicated group of R&D specialists seeking something out, the Helldivers 2 community has identified issues with laser precision, such as solo mission patrol spawn times being busted. But they have also been completely wrong when the word-of-mouth machine picks up on the wrong cues, such as with certain ricochet changes.

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