Arrowhead Studios' former lead writer Russ Nickel felt burned out after continually updating a live service game as flexible and unpredictable as Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 has been able to do the impossible for a live service game (stick around for longer than two hours) because the team actively reacts to everything the players do, in and outside the game itself. Helldivers 2's most contested planet got commemorated with an in-game Memorial Day, while the recent review-bombing fiasco might also be immortalized with a free cape.
But constantly building a narrative to evolve alongside community discourse can be more than tiring, according to Nickel, who spoke about the issue in an interview with Inverse.
- "I think life should be interesting": Helldivers 2's game director explains why Arrowhead's "rollercoaster" year was a "privilege," not a curse
- After an eventful year, Helldivers 2 devs hope "it will be less of a bumpy road when it comes to release accuracy" - but Arrowhead is still "prepared to take risks"
"I burned out hard, but it was my own fault," he explained. "I wanted Helldivers 2 to be so perfect that I absolutely destroyed myself. I abandoned my friendships, I pulled all-nighters. The company wasn't asking me to do that, it was just I cared so much about making a good that totally consumed me."
The grind of building a near-flawless live service has inspired the Helldivers 2 veteran to create a horny version of Fire Emblem - a currently untitled strategy RPG with a lot of romance. Despite missing his time contextualizing bug squashing, Nickel thinks his "upcoming game is actually a response to Helldivers and what I learned there" and his burnout is "part of why I'm making this current game."
Elsewhere, the former lead delved into how the game’s ambitious D&D-inspired campaign came about, the improv that fuelled players' fixation with Malevelon Creek, and how the game "trained" players to fight together against the PSN mandate.
Arrowhead reveals the Helldivers 2 ideas left on its cutting room floor, from 5-player squads to low-gravity planets and a whole new armor system
Helldivers 2 has a Major Order problem, but the solution isn't simple because "having 100% participation means the MOs will always be won and that introduces other issues"
