“Games that get 19% user score do not generally recover”: Helldivers 2 CEO reflects on Arrowhead’s “summer of pain” and No Man’s Sky-inspired redemption arc

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Helldivers 2 launched out of the gate to tremendous success last February, but as is the trend with big online releases these days, it eventually nosedived into a full-on tailspin due to various changes that upset fans.

In the case of Helldivers 2, you can mostly point to one big change at the root of its controversies: the one that required all players to sign into a PlayStation Network account even if they were playing on PC. The backlash was swift, united, and forceful enough that, just three days later, Sony walked back the decision and then-Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt commended the “willpower” of the Helldivers community.