Helldivers 2 Developer Doesn’t Want to Grow Too Fast, Wants to be “a Flagship Studio”

In light of Johann Pilestedt recently stepping down as the CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios in favour of a role as the studio’s chief creative officer, Pilestedt, along with new CEO Shams Jorjani, spoke about their plans for the studio going forward in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

The duo spoke about not wanting to expand Arrowhead Game Studios too quickly in light of its recent success with Helldivers 2. Pilstedt said that he wants the studio to be like FromSoftware or Blizzard, in that the he wants the studio to work on games that they want to make, rather than being forced to work on a project due to circumstances.

“We pride ourselves on being an independent studio,” said Pilestedt in the interview. “We have to see what the future holds, but there’s nothing in the plans where we want to be acquired by somebody. I want to see how high we can fly. And bringing Shams on board, we have a good potential to realise that future of turning into the next FromSoftware or Blizzard.”

Jojani also speaks about not wanting to expand the studio to too big a size. Instead, he wants the studio to stay smaller and remain focused on making co-op games, and eventually wants to turn Arrowhead Game Studios into a “flagship” studio.

“The goal of the studio is to make really great co-op games,” said Jojani. “We really want to turn Arrowhead into a flagship studio, where people who want to make these kind-of games say to themselves: ‘I want to work at Arrowhead’. When we were growing up, we really wanted to work at Blizzard, it was one of the bucket list places to work at. I think Arrowhead has the potential to be that.”

“But that doesn’t mean we have to be a 500-person company,” he continued. “In fact, a 500-person company is quite painful in a lot of ways. We will see growth, but growth as a means to an ends, not as an end itself. We don’t have plans to go public. None of those shenanigans. Measured growth that allows us to make amazing game and be a good place to work.”

“We don’t run the business for monetary gain,” added Pilestedt. “The humbleness and the desire to just make great games is the only reason we exist.”

Pilestedt announced that he was stepping down as the CEO of the studio earlier today, stating that this will allow him to focus more on the creative side of developing games. Jorjani took up the role as the new CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios after previously having spent 12 years at Paradox Interactive.

Helldivers 2 itself has been an immense success for Arrowhead Game Studios, having sold 12 million copies since launch. The game, which came out earlier this year, is available on PC and PS5.