HELLDIVERS 2 is controlled by one mysterious man
Helldivers 2’s galactic war is much more than a mission selector. In a short time, players have become invested in the status of their favourite planets and reacted to gains and losses in a sector’s liberation. The simulated conflict has become an unexpected focal point of the Helldivers 2 experience.
Unexpected to players, that is. To developer Arrowhead Game Studios, the war is a product of planning and storytelling by a specific behind-thescenes individual pulling the strings: what Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt described to PC Gamer as Helldivers 2’s ‘dungeon master’.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS HAS BEEN A MAJOR INSPIRATION FOR ARROWHEAD
“We have an actual person with the job title of game master,” Pilestedt told PC Gamer in an exclusive interview. His name is Joel, and he takes his job very seriously. “We have a lot of systems built into the game where the game master has a lot of control over the play experience. It’s something that we’re continuously evolving based on what’s happening in the game,” Pilestedt continued.
Pilestedt says Dungeons & Dragons has been a major inspiration for Arrowhead. The studio aims to replicate the reactive storytelling of tabletop gaming in Helldivers 2. “It’s the same format when you build that for millions of players, it’s just that you can’t get as personal with every individual. But you can still do the same twists and turns.”
Those twists can be as granular as giving a specific player access to a special stratagem mid-mission to spice things up, but it also extends to larger narrativised events in the galactic war. We got our first taste of those a week after launch, when the offensive campaign against the Terminids was interrupted by Automaton invasio
