It has been a difficult week for developer Arrowhead and its game Helldivers 2. The sudden decision by Sony to reinstate mandatory PSN account linking resulted in the PC community rebelling by leaving 200,000+ negative reviews on the game’s Steam page.
A few days later, Sony decided to ditch the requirement, and to the community’s credit they have since begun leaving positive reviews to gradually restore the game’s heavily damaged rating.
Which brings us to now. Helldivers 2’s new $10 Warbond, the game’s version of a battle/season pass, is due to arrive sometime today, bringing with it a heap of ice-based mayhem. However, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt is worried that releasing new paid content might come across as tone deaf.
As such, he and the rest of the studio have asked players to vote on whether it should be delayed.
“With the negative sentiment around account linking, a concern from the team came up about ‘is it tone deaf to release a new (paid) warbond this soon?’” Pilestedt tweeted today. “And therefore we are putting it to a real vote in true democratic fashion.”
As I write this, 74% of the people who have voted support releasing the new Warbond as planned. There is 9 hours left to vote.
It’s an interesting move from Arrowhead to help regain a modicum of trust from the community, and it seems to have worked well with most people appreciating the idea.
A few people though, were less concerned with the Warbond and more concerned with balancing the gameplay. Many people feel Arrowhead are buffing and debuffing weapons and stratagems too much, leading to an inconsistent experience, and have nerfed a lot of the most fun weapons in the name of balance.
Pilestedt responded to this criticism today, admitting that he things he and the team have gone too far in some areas.
Hey, yeah i think we’ve gone too far in some areas. Will talk to the team about the approach to balance. It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed.
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 8, 2024
