Helldivers 2 creator says studios need to stop “making battle royales” and chasing trends and “take more risks” 

Johan Pilestedt, one of the main creators behind Helldivers 2, has blasted the modern games industry in the face of worldwide layoffs. While games like Monster Hunter Wilds are releasing to record sales for veteran companies, studios are continuing to make cuts across the board. 

Speaking at GSC 2025, via Eurogamer, Pilestedt blamed the industry’s inability to look outside current trends and create their own experiences that stand as unique titles in a sea of similarity. 

Helldivers 2 lead on industry layoffs 

During the conference, Pilestedt explained that the “games industry is caught in a vicious circle of death and rebirth”. With games like Concord taking eight years to follow a once-popular trend and failing right out the gate, Pilestedt believes the industry needs to invest in more unique types of games. 

“Every so often we lay off thousands of people suddenly, and then nobody understands why, and I think it’s just because we converge,” the developer said. 

“We will always go through the cycles of death and rebirth, but now that cycle is unnecessarily brutal because we don’t diversify enough. We need to make more types of games because people are playing more than ever and still we are unable to stay in business. It’s ridiculous.”

For example, Pilestedt touched on the now-fading battle royale craze which exploded after the release of PUBG. While the genre has resulted in some huge successes like Fortnite, Apex Legends and Warzone, it’s also led to some dismal failures. In fact, at multiple points during development, Xbox’s Halo Infinite was designed to be a trend chaser with early designs aiming for a hero shooter multiplayer and a scrapped battle royale mode. 

“If everybody stopped making battle royales and made [different] games we wouldn’t be in this position,” Pilestedt said. “A lot of publishers – I’m sorry, my dear publisher friends – try to play it safe by taking safe bets. But one thing that I can guarantee is that those safe bets are a death sentence for the studios that try to make it.”

The developer explained that studios need to “take more risks” just like Arrowhead and PlayStation did with Helldivers 2. While the multiplayer game isn’t making Fortnite money, it’s a huge success, and it’s a game that’s thoroughly unique. There’s nothing like Helldivers 2 on the market, and that makes it worth something instead of being disposable. 

“If you don’t take risks, we’re never gonna be able to achieve success. Few people believed that Helldivers would amount to anything, and yet here we are,” he said. 

As it stands, the success of Helldivers 2 has allowed Arrowhead to massive upsize its team to not only continue creating years of content for the game, but also work on its future.  With major updates in the works to turn the game into its own spiritual sequel, Arrowhead is far from done with the game.