Helldivers 2 developer and the CEO of Arrowhead Games Studio Johan Pilestedt explained why the studio will not be removing friendly fire despite calls to have it removed or significantly toned down.
A screenshot from Helldivers II (2024), Arrowhead Game Studios
Back on February 25th, one player on the game’s Steam forums called for friendly fire to be toned down or Arrowhead to institute some kind of negative feedback if you engage in friendly fire.
The player wrote, “Friendly fire needs to be toned down or.. There needs to be some form of punishment for causing friendly fire, just did a mission there with 2 somewhat low levels and one ended with 15,000 friendly fire damage by consistently bringing in orbital strikes on top of us. It even meant two of us didn’t finish the mission as he killed us just before the pelican left. I don’t think it was intentional but it made the run unfun and less rewards were gained because of it.”
Vantal on Helldivers 2 Steam forum
Another user, Fatal Penguin posted, “Can we please get some form of anti-sh*tiness? Game hosts will literally team kill you all game and you can’t boot them. Its awful and a waste of time on longer missions. Especially on the harder difficulties.”
Fatal Penguin on Helldivers 2 Steam forum
Despite these calls and others, Pilestedt informed PlayStation that friendly fire is not going away. He said, “The most important thing when we make games is believability. Things should be consistent in the game world and therefore, we must have friendly fire.”
He elaborated, “If your bullets can kill enemies, and the enemies can kill you, then logic dictates that your bullets must also be able to kill your friends. This kind of design is inherently systematic, where we create a rule set that applies to everything in the game world, with minor exceptions.”
“What this does, and maybe most clearly noted by friendly fire, is create a complexity to the gameplay where players have to actively think during combat sequences – not in a ‘solve the puzzle’ way but instead in a very primal creative problem-solving way,” he continued.
A screenshot from Helldivers II (2024), Arrowhead Game Studios
On top of this gameplay design, he also notes the laughs ensuing from the friendly fire are part of it too, “Also, the chuckles that happen when you accidentally carpet bomb your friends allows for a playfulness that in reality would be a tragedy – but within the self bounds of games we can explore the dark humor of these situations.”
“And finally, the friendly fire element makes the players a true interactable part of the game world that plays a great part in positioning and helps with team play,” he concluded.
A screenshot from Helldivers II (2024), Arrowhead Game Studios
Earlier in the interview, he also noted that he wanted players to feel human and friendly fire is part of that.
He explained, “We also had pivotal functions that we knew we wanted to include: The viscerality and intensity of combat, the haphazardness and friendly fire. We always knew we wanted the juxtaposition between the fragility of humans with overpowered tools versus physically superior foes only vulnerable to heavy weapons. Feeling human is a key part to the Helldivers experience.”
A screenshot from Helldivers II (2024), Arrowhead Game Studios
What do you make of Pilestedt’s explanation for why friendly fire is not going away?
