"The more things that can break when you pull the trigger, the better": Helldivers 2 veterans stole Arrowhead's "fantasy approach" to action while making stunning new horror Metroidvania

Former Helldivers 2 directors Linus Larsson and Mattias Snygg now have a very different Earth to tend to in Silver Pines, an upcoming small-town horror Metroidvania, which will also be the first game made by their new indie studio Wych Elm. But, though the dingy Americana of Silver Pines is rawer than anything Super Earth's craven democracy is willing to produce, Larsson and Snygg tell GamesRadar+ there's still a development trick they're stealing from their time at Arrowhead.

"It is that sort of fantasy approach where extrapolating on actions that are normally a button press, that frequently shows up in both Helldivers 1 and Helldivers 2," Larsson says. "The more things that can break when you pull the trigger, the better. Like, guns should be loud and visceral. They shouldn't be something you need to put, like, 20 bullets into something to get it to go down."

This uninhibited approach to combat creates a cinematic experience in a dramatic shooter like Helldivers 2, but as someone who prefers horror over pure action, I imagine it would also lend itself to a thrilling survival experience.

Silver Pines follows private investigator Red Walker's trip through the tumbledown Silver Pines in search of the missing musician Eddie Velvet (these are all some of the most Lynchian proper nouns I've heard in a while), and I expect Helldivers-style, explosive gunslinging will only heighten the down-home surreality of that experience.

Echoing Blue Velvet director David Lynch's famous adage that "the film is the thing," Snygg adds that, "The creative vision and the creative output is the thing, and everybody understands that." Everybody understands that, and a couple of bullets.

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