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Helldivers 2 is the perfect four-player co-op game, but many fans have expressed an interest in bigger squads for larger friend groups. Unfortunately, five-player squads and above won’t be added to the multiplayer game as Arrowhead found the end up ruining the teamwork of the game.
Alongside testing a return of the downed mechanic from the original game, Arrowhead spent plenty of time designing the game for five-player squads, but the bigger team setup simply didn’t work.
Helldivers 2 devs shutdown five-player squads
Discussed in a recent Q&A, ex-Helldivers 2 design director Patrik Lasota explained that “Helldivers 2 was originally designed for five people, actually”, but the team size led to major design issues. During development, Johan Pilestedt opted to cut team sizes down to four players as it led to better teamwork overall.
“When you’re four people playing, if a fifth joins you, suddenly you’re a three stack and a two stack,” Lasota explained. “It creates this unbalance. But if you’re five people and someone joins, you’re two three stacks and you’re three groups instead of one becoming a pair.”
During early development, Arrowhead wanted Helldivers 2 to consist of five people teams, but it simply didn’t flow as well as it did with four players.
“We actually wanted Helldivers 2 to be five people originally but, unfortunately, as we played with it, it just didn’t work,” Lasota continued. “It turns out, when you’re five people, someone is always just standing around, not really participating in the action.”
Additionally, the inclusion of a new player gave teams way too much freedom in the stratagems they could bring into a fight. Teams could stock up on additional weapons that offered too much freedom to complete objectives.
“It just turned the game into… you didn’t really have to make any choices when it came to stratagems,” they continued. “I say, the biggest thing was that someone was always just standing around, idling, instead of playing the game which prompted us to remove it.”
For more Helldivers 2 coverage, read about the game’s next crossover that’s currently in early development, or read our thoughts on why an official Halo crossover needs to happen.
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