Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt has gone on record that Helldivers 2 will never have PvP.
Pilestedt was responding to a fan on Twitter, who asserted that they would keep their player numbers higher if they did add PvP to the popular co-op online shooter. This was Pilestedt’s response:
“Hey; We’ll “never” add a PvP-mode. This is to reduce toxic elements from the community.
We want an environment that’s supportive, fun and where we all are fighting on the same side!”
While this wasn’t an entirely unreasonable request from the fan, it was a complete misunderstanding of what Helldivers 2 was doing. Certainly, they and other fans may see some surface similarities between how Helldivers and Call of Duty player characters look, and imagined that it would be fun to have such a mode.
But this is tantamount to changing the game’s genre completely. The point of Arrowhead Studios’ title was for players to find enjoyment in playing in a team. Unlike team shooters with PvP elements, like Halo Infinite, Helldivers 2’s story narrative, and its in-game design encourages players to work with each other, and not even compete with each other to do better. The idea is the game rewards you if you coordinate better to achieve your objectives, and that is the only way you can play optimally.
To make a comparison, this would be like asking, what if the Survivors had guns at the start of every Dead by Daylight session? Some gamers might like to play like that, but that misses the point of Dead by Daylight entirely. If the Survivors had a better fighting chance, or outmatched the Killer in every game, then there would be no thrill in outwitting or beating the Killer. Subsequently, it wouldn’t be a fun game for whoever ends up being the Killer either.
We should also consider that video games are now in a place where online co-operative games are highly in vogue. One can hardly say Helldivers 2 is unique in this regard, when Rare’s Sea of Thieves also aims towards the same non-toxic interactions in their co-op online game.
Other highly popular co-op online games include Monster Hunter Rise, Payday 2, Deep Rock Galactic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, and Remnant 2. As you can see, there’s a wide diversity of games with these qualities, and they aren’t even all non-violent.
For what its worth, Arrowhead’s plans are working out, as the Helldivers 2 community is starting to form their own informal rules of etiquette to make sure all the players are having fun and behaving.
