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Arrowhead Game Studios founder and Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt, who now holds the position of chief creative officer at the company, is taking a sabbatical and working on an all-new game upon his return. But the studio's CEO has clarified what the lead's role will be in the future for fans worried about future Helldivers 2 support.
"So let me give you a bit of insight into how game dev works," Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani wrote in the game's Discord channel. "The lead for the game is Mikael Eriksson and has been for the last few years - Johan's role as a senior creative is to support all our projects. So he'll absolutely still be involved - in the same way he's been the past year - gives input on high level plans, collaborates with designers on some stuff."
Gaming discourse has somewhat aped film discourse in recent years as praise (and sometimes criticism) for certain games is heaped onto one particular person, whether that's Hideo Kojima or Ken Levine or Neil Druckmann, despite the fact that these men are clearly leading very expensive games made by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other talented developers. It's auteur theory. And it's a way of thinking that Jorjani also pushes back on.
"The vast majority of Helldivers is a team effort - it's not one Jesus figure," he explains. "Johan's super power is developing concepts and games from the ground up. He was instrumental in getting Helldivers to where it needed to be - others carried it across the finish line." So, in other words, Pilestedt's evolving role won't derail whatever you like about Helldivers 2 as it is now.
