Arrowhead Game Studios previously said that a potential Helldivers 3 is hopefully years and years away since the developer is mainly focused on expanding and supporting Helldivers 2 for as long as people are interested in it. CCO and creative director Johan Pilestedt even hinted at the idea that Helldivers 2 could one day turn into Helldivers 3, and now, we have some idea of that would look like.
When asked about the "sequel-level features" he'd like to see come into the game before it's ready to grow into an actual sequel, in a very democratic conversation with the studio, Pilestedt said "there's quite a lot of them actually and I think the community is pretty good at picking up where they sort of want the game to head when you consider sort of the sequel-esque approach to it."
"Eight-player missions would be one of those," the Arrowhead CCO continued. "Larger open-world maps where you maybe come across other Helldiver teams to then take on bigger challenges together. Operations that affect other teams, as well, would be those kind of level of features."
Really, Pilestedt explains that sequel-level features are pretty much just anything "that really accentuates the Galactic War and the scale of the conflict that the players are in." Bigger maps with more divers (and probably more bugs/bots/squids) is definitely one way to do it. And, rather than abandoning Helldivers 2 and outright building Helldivers 3 from scratch, getting major updates with features like the ones above seems ideal.
Pilestedt didn't put a timeframe on when we can expect said sequel-sized changes (or even if - this wasn't official confirmation of eight player missions, mind you), but the game's next four arcs are already being discussed.
