“If people want to support this title, they have an option, but we are never forcing anyone to do so,” said CEO Johan Pilestedt.
Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 launched a few days ago and is already the biggest Steam launch for PlayStation Studios, with 155,926 peak concurrent players. Factoring in PS5 players brings that total to about 360,000, which is impressive. Among many things that players have enjoyed is monetization.
While Super Credits are used to purchase cosmetics and the Premium War Bond and are available for real money, they’re also earnable in-game. Players can spend War Medals in the free War Bond for Super Credits and even discover them throughout missions. Nevertheless, pay-to-win allegations have emerged with some weapons exclusive to the Premium War Bond.
Responding on Twitter, Arrowhead CEO and creative director Johan Pilestedt said, “I’m partial, but we really applied ourselves to not make it pay-to-win, even though items are functionally different. The only item that’s P2W is the revolver – which will win you any ‘cool gun’ competition. Only (minor) problem is that it’s not that good.” Whether there are plans to buff the weapon remains to be seen.
When praised for not having predatory microtransactions, Pilestedt replied, “‘You have to earn the right to monetize’ – I truly believe that. If people want to support this title, they have an option, but we are never forcing anyone to do so.”
Helldivers 2 has sold about one million copies since launch. It will receive new content, including biomes, enemies, objectives and story updates in the future, so stay tuned. For now, Arrowhead is working to resolve issues with overcrowded servers causing issues with rewards.
