Helldivers 2 CEO reveals millions of Call of Duty players contributed to “summer of pain”

Helldivers 2 has been one of the biggest success stories for Sony since its launch at the beginning of 2024. It has been a massive hit on both PS5 and PC, and it’s become such an icon in so short time that Sony is even working on a movie. While the game is beloved, there has been some controversies, including a period of time where HD2 was receiving a lot of criticism online. In a new interview, the Helldivers 2 CEO has discussed how millions of Call of Duty players helped contribute to Arrowhead’s “summer of pain”.

Millions of Call of Duty players contributed to Helldivers 2 “summer of pain”

Helldivers 2 CEO, Shams Jorjani, recently conducted an interview with The Game Business’ Christropher Dring. During this interview, the CEO discussed the “summer of pain” in 2024 where HD2’s user score fell to 19%, and how Arrowhead managed to flip the negativity to an approval rating of 94%.

According to the CEO, a lot of the problems stemmed from Arrowhead facing a barrage of “so many different voices” from a variety of gaming audiences. This included millions of Call of Duty players, who Helldivers 2 was not designed for and intended to attract.

Per Insider Gaming, Shams Jorjani said, “We did not make Helldivers for six million Call of Duty players. We absolutely didn’t. But six million Call of Duty players bought our game”.

The problem with so many Call of Duty players buying the game is that, as a demographic, “they are interested in different things compared to, say, the audience that comes from Escape From Tarkov or Arma, which were some of [Arrowhead’s] more influential games,” according to Jorjani.

The CEO elaborated, “The summer of pain, or whatever we want to call it, was painful in part because it was hard for us to reconcile how to stay true to the studio fundamentals, while dealing with the business realities of having so many different voices screaming at us”.

While Helldivers 2 did suffer a bit during the summer from controversial balance changes, the good news is that the game is in a much better state right now. There are a couple of issues that need to be fixed such as the Autocannon and Eruptor, but these are bugs rather than misguided design choices.

For more Helldivers 2, check out our guide to the best warbonds ranked, along with the best stratagems and best throwables. We have also a guide to the best weapons, and, if you’re coming back to HD2 for the first time in a long while, we have a bunch of tips and tricks to help you get reaccustomed to the battlefield.