Helldivers 2 Was Developed Using the Same Obsolete Game Engine as its Predecessor

CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios, Johan Pilestedt, has taken to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to reveal that the game was built using a now-obsolete game engine. The title was built using an old engine named Bitsquid—renamed to Stingray after its acquisition by Autodesk in 2014.

Support for Autodesk Stingray, however, has been discontinued since 2018. Despite this, there are still quite a few titles that use the engine. For context, alongside Helldivers 2, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is another modern game that still uses the engine.

“The project started before it was discontinued,” said Pilestedt on X, referring to the discontinuation of support for the Stringray engine. “Our crazy engineers had to do everything, with no support to build the game to parity with other engines.”

It is worth noting that changing game engines isn’t really a decision that a studio can make on a whim, since it requires an incredible level of engineering to transition projects between different engines. Arrowhead Game Studios itself was also quite familiar with Autodesk Stingray, which likely played a part in keeping Helldivers 2 on the old engine.

Pilestedt’s statement was in response to a report by 80lv, which originally revealed that Helldivers 2 was developed using the same engine as its predecessor.

For context, most modern video game releases tend to be built on popular third-party game engines, like Unreal Engine, Unity, or even indie-centric engines like GameMaker Studio or Godot.

Helldivers 2 is currently available on PC and PS5. The game has been incredibly successful, leading to several server issues faced by the studio, with the CEO ultimately telling players to wait for the issues to get fixed before buying the game. Check out our Helldivers 2 review for more details.

This is true. Our crazy engineers had to do everything, with no support to build the game to parity with other engines.

And yes. The project started before it was discontinued.
https://t.co/mz61TnYNGN

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 21, 2024