As Helldivers 2 sends players in to destroy the Cyborg menace, Arrowhead details its plans for the future of the game

Helldivers 2 is off to a tremendous start this year, with a new batch of heavy weaponry and the Automatons stealing a not-Death-Star setting the stage for Super Earth’s attack on the Cyborgs of Cyberstan. What can players expect from this next major step in the Galactic War and the game’s future?

IGN sat down with Arrowhead’s Mikael Eriksson, game director on Helldivers 2, to discuss the team’s ambitions for these live events and how they’re reshaping a previously planned narrative based on the community’s performance.

On 10th February (that’s tomorrow), the battle for Cyberstan begins, and the Helldivers will be tasked with taking over the hostile Cyborg-controlled planet. “Players can win and players can lose, and it’s going to be super fun to see that play out,” Eriksson said, pointing out past events like Super Earth’s defence could’ve gone the wrong way. “Following that was pure fun for everyone at the office except for maybe the Game Master, who was sweating a little bit.”

How much can the players’ performance really affect the admittedly complex plans for the live online game’s content and narrative? Eriksson used tabletop role-playing games as a clear example of what Arrowhead is going for, in that there’s an overarching story that has been set, but players can choose how they interact with it, leading to smaller changes and deviations. Still, catastrophic failures can lead to, well, catastrophic results: “We know that players will now go to Cyberstan, but we don’t know how it will play out. We don’t know if they will win. We don’t know if they will lose. And there will be impacts on the Galactic War level. So the story that is being written in the Galactic War will change depending on what they do. And it can be quite consequential. Planets can get destroyed to never be able to be played on again. That sort of thing can happen.”

In a way, Helldivers 2 is a “forever game” despite it not having an overabundance of FOMO elements. This inevitably leads to more casual players being confused in regards to the state of the in-game narrative and the galaxy. “We are actively working on getting to a point where regardless of if you’re new or if you’re experienced, you should just be able to get into the game and understand very easily exactly what’s happening and why we’re fighting the fight that we’re doing right now,” Eriksson explained. It’s hard not to think of Destiny 2‘s struggles when it comes to onboarding new players, with the main difference being Destiny 2’s stories and universe are far denser.

Eriksson acknowledged the strength of having a simple fantasy that players can “get into” quickly. That’s allowed development on new content and narrative arcs to stay agile, and Arrowhead doesn’t “want to stray away from that.” The game will evolve and grow, but it appears the team is well aware of the dangers of making the game too big or dense for players looking at it like an uncomplicated form of escapism.

“Working on Helldivers as a live-service game is just bliss, because it’s such an interesting universe, endless possibilities, and we have many, many ideas that have yet to come to fruition,” the game director added, promising there’s much more to come… as long as the players stick around. So far, I’d say this is one of the few live-service success stories that studios and publishers could learn from.