Arrowhead Game Studios launched Helldivers 2 on PlayStation 5 and PC last week, though it’s been a long time coming. CEO Johan Pilestedt said the game was in development for nearly eight years, coming up only a few days short.
Helldivers 2 was in development for 7 years, 11 months, and 26 days
“#Helldivers2 finally launched,” Pilestedt said on Twitter, “7 years, 11 months and 26 days of my life spent on making a game that truly devolves into a farce of my favorite movies and books from my upbringing.” Assuming that he’s counting back from the game’s release on February 8, that means Helldivers 2 started development on February 13, 2016. That’s only about two months after the studio ported Helldivers 1 to PC, being the first Sony-published game to do so.
Pilestedt also thanked Helldivers fans for being “in [on] the joke of shouldering the cape of a totalitarian soldier.” In another tweet, he added, “This game has been in the back of my head ever since I and a couple of online friends tried to do a SST mod for the original Serious Sam/mod for the original AVP to bring the experience and the farce to life.”
The Helldivers series takes place in a satirical dystopian future where the totalitarian Super Earth government rules humanity. The games draw inspiration from military sci-fi like Aliens and Starship Troopers, and see humanity at war with multiple alien races.
While the first game featured a top-down perspective, Helldivers 2 is a third-person shooter. It’s also already proven to be a massive success for Swedish developer Arrowhead, with Helldivers 2 selling around 1 million copies as of February 10.
