Helldivers 2 devs "underinvested" in the shooter's engine, Arrowhead CEO admits, who pledges "things can/will get better" despite recent improvements

Tech issues have been a recurring bugbear of Helldivers 2 over the last year or so, as bugs and a ludicrous PC file size bogged down the sci-fi shooter. Arrowhead Game Studios has been gradually resolving these problems in recent months, and CEO Shams Jorjani has once again got candid about the team's failings.

Speaking on the game's Discord server (thanks, FRVR), he responds to someone asking about the engine, Autodesk Stingray. "Engines – including Unreal – yield back what you put into them," he states. "One isn't 'better' than another. We've underinvested in our tech that we're now finally doing something about."

The fan asks whether Autodesk Stingray was "on life support," referring to how the tech stopped receiving bespoke updates back in 2018. Arrowhead was already knee-deep in building Helldivers 2 at the time, and stuck to those foundations rather than pivoting.

YouTube

Watch On

For a time, this wasn't necessarily a problem, but an extended period of stacked updates and changes without massaging everything into the underlying technology took its toll on Helldivers 2, leading to a laundry list of problems. The 'feature decay' became a central part of the team's purview last year, as they sorted out glitches and found a way to reduce the sheer amount of hard drive space the struggle for liberty takes up.

Improvements have been considerable and regular, but Jorjani makes it clear the work is ongoing. "We're better (our stats and sentiment confirm it) but we're still not happy and things can/will be better," he affirms. Technical stability, much like democracy, is truly an ongoing effort.

These hurdles haven't slowed down the additions to Helldivers 2 any. We're still getting fresher enemies, missions and storytelling flourishes. The cyborgs were in freedom's crosshairs last month, and we're waiting to see what enemies emerge next. Nothing Super Earth can't handle.

Helldivers 2 support agent says "there's no balance team" at Arrowhead because "it's all a team effort": "No dev gets to just change whatever they want without oversight."