Helldivers 2 has enjoyed a typically chaotic couple of news cycles this past week. Following the leak that a collaboration with Sony and Guerrilla Games would bring Killzone 2-themed content to the game, its subsequent, immediate release confirmed this. Unfortunately, developer Arrowhead appears to have set the price too high, which was met with backlash from the community. On this, it quickly backtracked, apologising, increasing the availability of the first pack, and releasing the second early and for free.
IGN followed the twists and turns in detail, and during a Discord town hall, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani attempted to placate players: “Clearly, we’d love to find the sweet spot of people loving the content AND the price and buy the bejeesus out of it. This didn’t hit that mark.”
Falling on his sword, Jorjani took the blame for the perceived misstep, the developer’s at times rocky relationship with the platform holder clearly on his mind: “It’s a partnership [with Sony], but we are in the driving seat behind the decisions. This one is on us.” The developer alludes to the initial leak that suggested a Killzone-themed Warbond, before somewhat ominously adding:
“We changed it from a Warbond because there were concerns that having a higher priced Warbond would carry a negative sentiment… We want to create great experiences that are sustainable for years to come. As part of that, we need to figure out how to make HD2 financially sustainable in the long term.”