Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has a new CEO, and he’s now formally introduced himself to the community with a promise that the studio is building up to better deliver on the community’s demand for continued updates.
One of the principal things you should expect from Arrowhead after the business switcheroo is “MOAR,” new CEO Shams Jorjani says on Reddit. “We knew it would be impossible to keep up with demand and the insatiable hunger for more fun shit to do in/with HD2. Our singular focus as a studio is to set things up in a sustainable way so that in the long term we can make more and better stuff. We’re building a bit of scaffolding before we can make a bigger barn. Queue ‘where’s the patch?????’ comments.”
In a message on the game’s official Discord, Jorjani similarly acknowledges that “we’re definitely understaffed given the demand” for updates, but says “we want to find a good pace for growth.” Jorjani has already been quite public about his desire to find the right balance for growth, noting that “a 500-person company is quite painful in a lot of ways” and saying that he aims for “measured growth that allows us to make amazing games and be a good place to work.”
As for outgoing CEO Johan Pilestedt, Jorjani says “is all about getting Pilen closer to the games. Making new games/prototypes, having more time to play Helldivers, work closer to Micke our excellent Game Director and the many other designers/devs we have. I’ve charged Pilen with being the Obi-wan to many ‘Lukes’ in our studio. If everyone can hear Pilen’s sage voice in the back of their heads when they’re balancing weapons, designing missions or enemies the better.”
Much of Jorjani’s message to fans today is aimed at assuring everyone that he ‘gets it’. There’s a lot of detail about his long history with Arrowhead, including a link to a 12-year-old video featuring him alongside Pilestedt with some extremely 2012 hairstyles to match. This was back when Jorjani was a producer with Paradox, which served as the publisher for Arrowhead’s debut title, Magicka.
“While the Magicka launch was a big success, it was also a bit of a MESS,” Jorjani says. “Sound familiar? The game was insanely broken (terrible producer on that project). But we worked insanely hard to fix things. While the Arrowhead team patched the game like crazy (14 patches in 12 days – so often in fact that after a few days the pirate groups stopped pushing every new build to The Pirate Bay) I meanwhile hopped into every Steam thread and responded to comments, complaints and concerns. I think we all collapsed after 36 hours of non stop work.”
With all that in mind, Jorjani says the studio’s commitment to clear, regular communication isn’t changing – and that’s easy to believe after a 1400-word Reddit post. “I think Pilen has set a great precedent talking so plainly and directly with the community about the game,” Jorjani says. “He’s our ambassador and he’ll keep being our BIG voice. But I’ll be here as well, and why I’ve harped on a bit about myself.”
Just please – be a decent human being and ditch the death threats. “We share well articulated feedback about the game internally, it really resonates and makes it easier for us to do our jobs,” Jorjani says. “We don’t however circulate the posts where we’re told to go jump off a cliff – even if they might have excellent design feedback.”
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