Helldivers 2 devs admit to being bullies who want to kick over player sandcastles.
The 2025 DICE Awards was a great night for Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Studios. The chaotic co-op action shooter scooped up four trophies across the evening, giving Arrowhead chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt and deputy game director Mauricio Redondo plenty of chances to swing through the press room. That in turn gave us a chance to snag insights on its creative ambitions following a year of big success (and occasional struggles).
Our number one question had to do with the future of the game's "Galactic Campaign" system. Easily one of Helldivers 2's most defining characteristics, the "campaign" unites players with shared collective objectives that alter the ebb and flow of Super Earth's war against the giant bugs and murderous robots threatening Managed Democracy. The feature, stewarded by a "game master" named Joel creates a dynamic online space where Arrowhead can react to player surges in success—or major defeats—without requiring a new patch or content pack.
At DICE, Pilestedt and Redondo said there's still plenty of more design space to mine in the Campaign system, and said the team is working on systems that will give the player community "more agency" to shape the galaxy in the months ahead. "The point is, we want the community to be able to build their sandcastles...and for Joel to stomp on them," Pilestedt said.
He elaborated that the Campaign's greatest strength is that it drives player "unification" and creates opportunities for players to organize as a kind of bullet-driven democracy. Some objectives in 2024 tasked players with the choice between liberating two different planets: saving one would grant everyone anti-tank mines, and saving the other would protect "Super Citizen Anne's Hospital for Very Sick Children" (with no gameplay award attached)." Players could either coordinate off-platform to direct efforts toward one planet or another—or bicker and risk saving neither. They eventually rallied to save the kids.
To drive more moments like that, Redondo explained that Arrowhead hopes to create new "chess pieces" players can move around the metaphorical board. Some will let them "counteract" whatever the infamous "Joel" is cooking up.
The pair didn't provide specifics (Pilestedt is currently on sabbatical from the company and has handed off Helldivers 2's game direction), but their ambitions show that Arrowhead's innovative live service model still has boundless depths worth exploring—by themselves, and by other developers too.
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