Helldivers 2 acquired 6 million Call of Duty players, and the developers didn't know what to do with it
Shams Jorjani, CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios, admitted that the unexpected influx of players from the Call of Duty community who purchased Helldivers 2 was a real shock and challenge for the team.
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In an interview with The Game Business, he said: "We did not create Helldivers for six million Call of Duty players. But they bought our game. And their interests are different from the audience of Escape From Tarkov or Arma, which were our most influential games."
Giorgiani stressed that the diversity of new players has created difficulties in maintaining a balance between the studio's core principles and business realities: "The summer of pain, as we call it, was painful in part because we had a hard time reconciling how to stay true to the studio's foundations while dealing with business realities with so many different voices shouting at us."
But despite all these challenges, Helldivers 2 went on to become one of the most popular and recognised games of 2024. And although at one point it was hated and the game's Steam rating dropped to 19%, the authors were able to rehabilitate and raise it to 87% thanks to constant updates.
Source: The Game Business
