As Helldivers 2 Launches the Battle for Cyberstan, Arrowhead Says It's Already Plotting to Expand the Scope of the Game

Helldivers 2’s next big update, Machinery of Oppression, launches the Battle for Cyberstan, and sees players head to the alien homeworld and take on the Cyborgs, a new Automaton-adjacent enemy type that’s set to usher in a new round of terror — and chaos — to Arrowhead’s explosive third-person shooter. Machinery of Oppression also triggers the next big narrative beat in the Galactic War’s ongoing meta narrative, a community-driven story that has captivated fans ever since Helldivers 2 set PlayStation sales records two years ago. Two years ago! Where has the time gone? For the developers at Arrowhead, the launch and ongoing development of Helldivers 2 has been something of a rollercoaster, with ups and downs dominated by community love and hate. But now, as Helldivers 2 enters its third year, Arrowhead is coming to understand the game it has on its hands, and how to fuel the live-service beast in a sustainable way while keeping player numbers healthy. Steam concurrents are there for all the world to see, and even now, they are in a good place. So what happens next? The Battle for Cyberstan is yet another player-directed update. Players will take Cyberstan, or they will fail — Arrowhead doesn’t know how it’s going to go. But can Arrowhead make meaningful updates to Helldivers 2 beyond the sort of things we’ve seen in the last two years? In December, Johan Pilestedt [CCO of Arrowhead and creative director on Helldivers 2], talked about the possibility of a Helldivers 2 rogue-lite mode. But can the developers expand the scope of the game to, say, increase the squad count? Increase the number of players in a squad? Release bigger maps? Ideas aren’t the problem, of course. The problem, as with everything, is time, energy, and ideas. But, as game director Mikael Eriksson tells me in the interview below, these sorts of game-changing updates are being worked on. They are possible. And, he insists, the future of Helldivers 2 is bright indeed. IGN: Players have spent the week marching towards Cyberstan and they have tanks as well. I know you have big ambitions for how this new update will let the community direct the events of the Galactic War in an even more direct way than before, but how exactly will it work? Mikael Eriksson: February 10, that's when Super Earth will commence the battle for Cyberstan. And you're right, this is the most ambitious one yet for us. One of the central points of Helldivers is that we play the game together with the community, and the actions of the community are not known to us and the outcomes are not predetermined. This has been the case since launch, but of course we've tried to expand on this with almost every update to make this more impactful, and to make it more obvious what the different outcomes are and what the consequences will be. We still have many ambitious plans on how to expand on this even further, but for this time, the Battle for Cyberstan, will be the most ambitious one yet with a new type of meta gameplay. So it would be much more clear now for players what the consequences would be depending on how they choose to tackle this. So they can attack the planet from many different angles and it would be very obvious when players get there, what the consequences are and what's at stake. But again, the outcome is not predetermined, so we don't know what will happen. Players can win and players can lose, and it's going to be super fun to see that play out. Last time, with the Battle for Super Earth, which I think was maybe the biggest one before this, we also didn't know. Eventually players actually managed to defend Super Earth, which was super cool to see. Following that was pure fun for everyone at the office except for maybe the Game Master who was sweating a little bit, but for everyone else it was fun to see. IGN: Are you suggesting significant differences between outcomes this time around in a way that players haven't seen before, where things you might have created for one outcome just might never see the light of day? Mikael Eriksson: I want to make sure to set the right expectations here. Our primary inspiration for the Galactic War is tabletop role-playing games. And in tabletop role-playing games — for anyone who's played this — they know that there's a story that you can follow. This story is basically set, and the Game Master tells this story, but the players engage with the story in different ways and they create memories together, really powerful memories together that they share. It's a shared fantasy that they have. And this is unique, because how things play out in the tabletop role-playing game is not predetermined, but you take these memories with you and they can be and often are very powerful. I would say that what we're aiming for with Helldivers is similar, where we do want things to be consequential, and the type of consequences that we talk about is, for one, the story plays out in a way that we don't know, and this is up to the players to determine, or the story outcomes I should say, because we have the story that we're telling, we know what’s going to happen. 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. Or they don't get destroyed. This has happened in the past. Players have even voted to blow up planets, and they show us what to do. So what we are trying to do is we're trying to go as deep as we can, and deeper with every update, into this kind of experience where it really feels impactful on the meta layer, where you can see afterwards on the Galactic War screen. You can see it only looks like this because of all the actions that we took. But then there's of course additional things that we're talking about, which is impactful and persistent gameplay changes as well. So we're playing a little bit with all kinds of things here for this experience, and I don't want to spoil things so players will know what I'm talking about as soon as they're fighting this battle. But for the future, the summary of what we're doing is that we really want to have persistent story changes depending on community actions, and also persistent Galactic War consequences that you would be able to see and shape for all future time, and also tie rewards and actual gameplay differences to these things as well. That's the more high-level goal. And I think it is one of the most fun things with this game, the stories that the players create together when they interact with this game. I do think that's extremely powerful and it's one of the most fun things that we do with this game. IGN: So are you looking to improve how the game itself helps players understand their role in the Galactic War and how they impact it? Mikael Eriksson: Yeah. Okay, so I'll jump ahead a little bit. Even though I do think that we make strides in this direction with this upcoming update, the one that's going live right now, I also agree completely with what you're saying. As a new player or even an experienced player, when you come into the game, it can be confusing. What's happening in fact right now? For what reason? What's the context? Do I have to understand the full Galactic War to be able to understand this? Or is it okay if I just understand the current event? This can be quite tricky for players, and this is not what we want. So I can openly say that 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. And additionally and more importantly for me, what the consequences are, or rather what's at stake. So that's something that we are actively working on. It's one of the key things and key focuses for upcoming updates. So I'm happy to say that this is a really big part of what we're focusing on for the future. IGN: It must be an interesting design challenge for you to maintain what makes Helldivers special, but also accommodate people who are either newcomers or returning players who haven't played for a while in a gameplay sense? Mikael Eriksson: Yeah. I think one of the strengths of Helldivers is that it is very easy to understand the fantasy and get into it quickly. You can watch the opening cinematic with our John Helldiver character — named by the community — you can watch that and you can get it immediately. Then you can just participate in the fantasy and have fun. And we never want to stray away from that. We never want to get to a point where we've built so much complexity into the game that it's a real uphill battle to get into it. That's not what we want to do. We of course think a lot about this. Players will leave for a while and then will return, and we think it's very important that when they return, they can very easily get back into it and they can participate in this epic fantasy together and create these great memories that they can then bring with them for, I mean, ideally their entire lives. We want to believe that we actually add real value to the lives of real people. And so we do not want this to feel like an uphill battle. With this new update, I do think that it will be quite straightforward what the goals are. Everyone's marching towards Cyberstan and there will be an epic battle on Cyberstan, and I do think it's going to be easy to understand what the stakes are and what's at play. But yes, for every coming update that we're going to do now, this will increasingly be a focus. So that should always be easy to get into and always be easy to understand. IGN: Last month Johan Pilestedt [CCO of Arrowhead and creative director on Helldivers 2], talked about a rogue-lite mode casually on Twitter as if it was nothing. I'd love to pick your brains about what's going on there. Mikael Eriksson: Rogue-lite is a very big umbrella. I'm always happy when the community is active and speculating and coming up with ideas and just participating in the conversation. We have a really awesome community, so the more the merrier, keep it coming! I'm very happy about all this. Rogue-lite, very big umbrella. A lot of people hear it and a lot of them have different opinions about what this sort of means. What I can say is with this new update, players will see that there's at least some similarities to rogue-lite with how the meta game plays out on Cyberstan. There’s going to be some elements there that the players will think are quite interesting. But tempering expectations here, it's not full rogue-lite. We do draw some inspiration from that in some aspects with this new updates. For the future, here's what I'll say without confirming anything: we are experimenting with many different game modes. I can tackle it actually from this direction with this game: we want to basically offer all kinds of experiences that make sense in this universe. The way I view this game is I view it as a living universe. It's actually out there, where things are happening and players can be invaded from nowhere with an enemy that they didn't anticipate and so forth. And in this kind of universe, it makes sense that it would have an impact on what you choose to do. So if you choose to defend one planet or you choose to do a mission on this specific location, that should have an impact that should be persistent, and you should carry that with you to the next mission in the operation and so forth. So I do think that with the game that we have right now, it's actually not as consequential as it would actually be in this actual universe. Do you see what I'm saying? So it makes sense to draw inspiration from that kind of game in our universe, not because we want to emulate any other game, but rather because yeah, this actually does make sense in our universe. So for that reason, we are experimenting with all of these different kind of modes, but it's coming from a place of, how do we make sure that this game delivers on the promise that this game is, to deliver on this universe and everything that makes sense within it? That's why we choose to go to Cyberstan. Of course, in this universe, Super Earth should be able to attack the enemy home planets, right? You couldn't do that when we launched the game, but of course we should be able to do that. And of course that home planet should look different and play different from if we are being invaded, or if we're playing out in an open landscape. And of course it should make a difference if the battle goes very quickly or if it takes a long time. There's also a resource war going on. We don't have to build a super advanced strategic game, but we still need to stay true to this fantasy. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we still want to do, and we're exploring many things, but it's all coming from a place of how do we deliver on the full promise of what this game is and what it should be. IGN: Helldivers 2 is two years old now. Do you have a better understanding of what Helldivers 2 is, how to work on it, how to meet community demands? Do you feel like you've gotten to a place that is better for you guys as well as players? How would you assess the state of things now? Mikael Eriksson: When we launched the game, we were not really used to being a live-service studio of this size and with an audience of this size either. So we were really finding our way in this new environment. We've come to a point now after many ups and downs where we're starting to really find our identity as a live-service studio that is in it for the long haul. We can have this conversation again when Helldivers 2 is 10-years-old! We can talk about it then! But that's where we're going. We're in it for the long run. And I do think it's getting way more stable. So we still have some issues lingering in the game, but we're dealing with them one at a time. And I really believe that the future is looking bright and that we can get away from the really big ups and downs. Hopefully we're looking at this year being the most stable and most predictable yet I think in terms of just quality of our updates, and to be able to deliver a consistently smooth experience to players. So I'm very happy with where we are heading, and I really do believe that the future is very bright for Helldivers in this year and many years to come. And it's also super fun. 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. And I just want to see what the future holds and stick around for long enough to build everything that we want to build. That's what I'm hyped about. IGN: Would Helldivers 2 need a significant tech overhaul, almost like a tech rebuild, for you to implement really game-changing systems and mechanics? The first two years we've seen great updates. You've added new vehicles, various new weapons, strategems, new planets of course. But I mean to the point where it would be considered significantly game-changing — if you're talking about a 10-year plan, something really attention grabbing that fundamentally changed the way the games works — would it need something like that to support it? Or do you feel like the way the game is now could support those game changing updates? Mikael Eriksson: I think what I can say there is that when we launched, we had to prove to ourselves and everyone that we had a good formula for live-service games. So you're right that we have added a lot of really interesting, cool updates and I think that we have a good formula. We are doing what we call ‘good FOMO,’ that's what I call it at least, where we do these really cool updates where the outcomes are not predetermined and the community comes together, and they really love it, we really love it, and it's super fun to play with them. And so we got to a point where, alright, we believe that we have something that works and we have many awesome plans for the future — this being one of them with The Machine of Oppression. And you're right that we've had these tech issues lingering in the meantime that we've had to deal with. I won't speak to any sort of tech overhaul that we need to do or not, but what I can say is that we've invested heavily into tech improvements over the last year, and these things can sometimes take a while to cook, but we've already managed to, for example, reduce the fight size by over 100GBs on PC. So that was a massive win for us, and there's many other initiatives that's happening. We brought many more people in to work on these tech performance improvements. More is to come with every other update. I really do believe that we would be in a better place. And we fully intend to keep developing our tech and keep building on it to allow for even more things in the game, more variety of the sort that we struggle to do now because we are limited by tech. So yeah, we're committed and we are spending a lot of time and effort just working on these improvements. IGN: Helldivers 2, you are a single squad of four players that drops down onto a planet and goes about its business and escapes having completed various objectives, and it's wonderful fun, I absolutely love it. But when I'm talking about the previous question, it’s setting up the idea that that scope could be significantly expanded. What if there were two squads competing against each other in some way or working together in some way? What if there were three squads? What if a squad was bigger? Or the play space was bigger as a result? And that sort of tech question comes from a place of wondering about whether those sorts of things are possible in the current Helldivers 2, or it would require significant work to be able to enable those things. That's more what I was getting at with the previous question, but it'd be great to get your take on that. Mikael Eriksson: One of the best things about working with this game is that the cool things that you can do in this universe are kind of obvious, at least many of them are. So having multiple squads working together, or bigger squads, or way more enemies, or way more friendly NPCs by your side, like with the SEAF soldiers that we have in the Super Earth cities, these are things that we know — at least we think we know — can be super cool. What I’ll say is of course we're experimenting with this and we do have grand plans in this sort of area. Getting the game to be a consistently smooth experience for everyone is a number one priority. This has to be the case across all platforms and on the recommended specs for PC, on the lower end hardware and so forth. That will be the first priority and that's what we're doing first. But then yes, we are of course looking into how to expand the game in ways that is not currently possible with, for example, more players and so forth. But I really want to make this clear: I'm not promising anything or announcing anything with that. But what I want to emphasize is, we are working with a game that has these quite obvious things that you would want to test, me included. And I'm very hyped about pushing this game to say, okay, what can it be? It comes back to the delivering of the fantasy of this game is delivering on the promise of this universe. That's where we keep going, and we want to keep going for many years. And assuming that we can do that, then I'm sure that there will be many, many things of this sort that will come up as we go into the future.