The studio employee manages the galactic war and can intervene in the course of any battle in various ways: for example, at a certain moment, send reinforcements of Automatons.
«We have a real person with the title of Game Master», — said Arrowhead CEO Johan Pylestedt in an interview PC Gamer. «His name is Joel, and he takes his job very seriously».
Helldivers 2, a game about space stormtroopers (elite Helltroopers), alien cockroaches (Terminus beetles) and bloodthirsty Automatons, was released on February 8 simultaneously on PC and PS5. Currently, the corporate sci-fi shooter Arrowhead remains at the top of sales and continues to set records on Steam — on the night of February 21, the project reached 457.6 thousand simultaneous players and entered the top 20 games in the history of Steam by this indicator.
Pylestedt notes in the interview that the main source of inspiration for Arrowhead was Dungeons and Dragons — the studio aims to recreate the shared narrative of board games in Helldivers 2, recognizing the differences between developing a campaign for a small group and millions of players.
«It’s the same format when you create it for millions of players, you just can’t be as personal with each person. But you can still make the same» turns.
These twists, as explained by Arrowhead, can include details such as giving a certain player access to a special strategy mid-mission to «spice up» a situation, but also extend to larger narrative events of the galactic war (for example, when a week after launch, the offensive campaign against the Terminids was interrupted by an Automatons invasion on the opposite side of the galaxy).
The studio notes that it has «predictions» about how the war will unfold and has developed «standards» that it believes will be meaningful, although in reality the story will change depending on player behavior.
«There were sudden moments when one planet was too easy and the other — too hard, and Joel had to get up in the middle of the night to give the Automatons a little reinforcement so that the players wouldn’t take the planet too quickly», — said Piledrift.