Helldivers 2 creative director and Arrowhead CCO Johan Pilestedt, the creative lead on a game built around the idea of wearing a caricature of fascism like a Halloween costume, reckons game developers should simply “make good games, don’t make a contemporary political statement.”
This Twitter discussion, which has now predictably spiraled into reply fights between the people confused by Pilestedt’s statement and those encouraged by it, started with Pilestedt teasing Arrowhead’s next game. “I am working on the high concept, but I would love to hear your speculation,” he said in the main post.
Just as many popular gaming tweets do, this post attracted the gaming portion of the anti-DEI crowd, who believe, despite abundant expert opinions to the contrary, that a push for diversity, equity, and inclusion in games and among game developers is somehow to blame for the industry’s recent struggles or their personal dissatisfaction. “Never add DEI to your games,” one user advised Pilestedt.
“If it doesn’t add to the game experience, it detracts,” Pilestedt responded somewhat obtusely. “And games should be a pure pursuit of amazing moments.” Arrowhead and Helldivers 2 have found praise and success by following the motto that “a game for everyone is a game for no one,” and Pilestedt specifically has stressed the importance of creating those amazing moments even if it means the resulting experience won’t appeal to all players.
As a response to someone treating DEI as some evil or scapegoat – an entirely unprovoked and unrelated topic – in a conversation where everyone involved seems to be talking away from the other person, that message doesn’t land the same way. If this is all meant to be part of the bit, with Pilestedt feigning ignorance just like Super Earth command, it hasn’t quite clicked with everyone judging from the ugly conversations orbiting his response. Perhaps contemporary is meant to do some heavy lifting here, pushing Helldivers 2 away from one-to-one connections to modern political issues, but the argument may be too vague for its own good.
Another user asked “how would DEI have benefited Helldivers 2,” and while Pilestedt didn’t offer much in the way of specifics here either, he did respond again.
“I don’t like labels,” he began. “But mankind is united in its extreme xenophobia on Super Earth. #Inclusion so, maybe that’s DEI? I really don’t care. Make good games, don’t make a contemporary political statement.”
I’ve seen a lot of video game creative leads seriously insist that they weren’t being political, won’t try to be political, or that they and other games shouldn’t get political, typically as a boring way to play things as safe as possible. These messages have repeatedly been torn apart by other game developers or undermined by the very games those creative leads worked on. This bizarre spat of painfully avoidable controversy would go in the latter camp, but may well have been a simple case of imprecise wording unfortunately amplified by online culture wars.
Edit: Shortly after this story was published, Pilestedt responded to another user pointing out the strange contrast between his perceived message and “the game where you invade planets for oil, fight the spread of communism, and declare war on a race for possibly having WMDs.” Here’s his response in full:
“Well, that’s the theme of the game. I meant outside of the theme. Sorry for being unclear. Also, it’s more Cold War/Bush-era politics that inspire HD2.”
To be absolutely clear, our roundup of the best games of 2024 gave the GOTY crown to Helldivers 2, and like Metaphor: ReFantazio – also high on the list – its excellence is partly a function of it being one of the most political games of the year. Helldivers 2’s democratic chest-beating is genuinely funny, and it gives the absurdities of its universe a memorable edge. As Pilestedt points out, the Super Earth regime is a xenophobic hive. As he previously pointed out, that regime – with its all-consuming military and persecution of thought crimes and routine exploitation of citizens – is a bunch of fascists. “Don’t be a facist,” he told players last year. (I am once again preserving this “facist” typo for absolute clarity; accompanying remarks made it clear that Pilestedt meant fascist.) That’s the joke! And it is, inextricably and undeniably, political commentary. Is it topical? That’s a bit grayer and arguably depends on where you live.
Helldivers 2 presents exaggerated renditions of very real fascist practices but lets players have fun with fascism by cranking it to 11 and locking it in the stocks in the public square so we can throw tomatoes at it, all while larping as fascists ourselves because role-playing as the baddies in video games can also be fun, especially when you’re taking the piss out of them. All of that, the flavor and world building and humor, would evaporate if Arrowhead tried to avoid politics entirely, as a few have requested here, which makes this whole exchange even more bizarre. I’ve heard more convincing arguments that the sun rises in the west.
Just today, we learned that Helldivers 2 players beat the Illuminate back but they’re still freaking out citizens, so High Command wants to build a surveillance center which definitely won’t be used for spying.
