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‘Helldivers 2' Studio's Next Game Will Be Free From PlayStation Partnership

‘Helldivers 2' Studio's Next Game Will Be Free From PlayStation Partnership

Forbes15-05-2025

Helldivers 2
Arrowhead
In an era of struggling PlayStation live service offerings, some of which will never see the light of day, a bright spot for Sony has been the huge success of Helldivers 2, the ongoing, co-op PvE game where players band together to fight bugs, bots and now rather smart aliens.
Now, it's been revealed that Helldivers 2 has done so well, that developer Arrowhead's next game is going to be all theirs, and there will be no more Playstation partnership resulting in one-console exclusivity. Here's Arrowhead's Shams Jorjani on Discord:
And then responding to a comment wondering about perhaps anything negative about the partnership with Sony, which is not ending, at least for the time being:
Helldivers 2
Arrowhead
So there's no bad blood here, Arrowhead just wants to make a game that is independent and not reliant on a specific deal so they can 'call 100% of those shots.' What this means is that whatever Arrowhead's next game ends up being will no doubt launch on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch 2 and PC, at the very least. Though it's unclear how long development will take so we could be talking about PS6 or Xbox Series X-2 (not sure what else to call that one).
In January of 2025, Helldivers 2's creative director Johan Pilestedt said that 'planning and conceptualization' had begun on the next game, but again, that suggests that it is very far off. Helldivers 2 is a sequel to the original Helldivers way, way back in 2015, but it seems unlikely that whatever this new game is will take another nine years. We do not have any idea what it's about, though it is almost certainly not going to be Helldivers 3. In the past, Arrowhead has done two fantasy games (Magicka and Gauntlet) and a modern shooter (The Showdown Effect). So it's a wide range of possibilities, and now with more resources and freedom to do whatever they want. We should all look forward to whatever that is.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

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