Helldivers 2 might follow in Destiny 2's footsteps with 'sequel-level' features via new updates

Arrowhead's John Pilestedt calls the shots on what comes next to Helldivers 2, and he outlines some of his most ambitious 'sequel-defining' features.

Helldivers 2 might follow in Destiny 2's footsteps with 'sequel-level' features via new updates
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Senior Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: Arrowhead plans to continuously expand Helldivers 2 with sequel-level content like 8-player missions and large open-world maps, enhancing social and cooperative gameplay without releasing Helldivers 3. Current focus is on technical improvements and bug fixes before introducing major new features.

Instead of releasing Helldivers 3, the devs at Arrowhead aim to just keep updating Helldivers 2 with a bunch of new content--kind of like what Bungie has done with Destiny 2. Now we have an idea of what kinds of things could show up in the game in the coming years.

Helldivers 2 might follow in Destiny 2's footsteps with 'sequel-level' features via new updates 54
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If Arrowhead has their way, Helldivers 2 could become the next Destiny 2 (but in a good way?). The idea is to add so-called sequel-level features into Helldivers 2 without having to actually launch a brand new separate product. Johan Pilestedt, Arrowhead's previous CEO who moved to Chief Creative Officer so he could have more control over how Helldivers 2 evolves, outlines some of the content that could show up in lieu of a sequel.

In a recent video interview, Pilestedt says he'd like to see additions like 8-player missions and more organic social play set in a massive open-ended map--areas so big that players could run into other squads while exploring.

"There's quite a lot of [sequel-level features] actually and I think the community is pretty good at picking up where they sort of want the game to head when you consider sort of the sequel-esque approach to it.

"Eight-player missions would be one of those. Larger open-world maps where you maybe come across other Helldiver teams to then take on bigger challenges together. Operations that affect other teams, as well, would be those kind of level of features."

These features may have to wait a while. For now, Arrowhead says that it is dialing back ambitious content updates in favor of technical fixes behind the scenes, including reducing the amount of storage that the game takes up.