Arrowhead says Helldivers 3 isn’t in development, because Helldivers 2 would be its biggest rival

Arrowhead Game Studios has no plans to release a new Helldivers game any time soon, and its chief creative officer has explained why: the main rival of a Helldivers 3 would be the game players are already hooked on. In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, covered by VGC, Johan Pilestedt said the studio’s focus remains squarely on Helldivers 2.

Where Arrowhead’s time is going

According to VGC, Pilestedt said 95% of the studio is still working on Helldivers 2 updates. A “small team” is prototyping the studio’s next game, but that doesn’t mean it’s a sequel. VGC notes it isn’t certain the project will be Helldivers 3, since Pilestedt stressed that the priority is nurturing the existing player base rather than starting from zero.

That reasoning rests on how Arrowhead sees a sequel. Pilestedt said his view is that a sequel “resets everything” and forces players to start over, whereas a continuation turns a game into a “lifelong hobby, like Lego or Warhammer”. He contrasted that with studios that treat players as a short-term cash grab. Arrowhead, he said, sees players as the engine of the game, since they bring in friends, make memes and keep it alive. In his words, an active community doing that means “you don’t need a sequel.”

A sequel would split the player base

The practical risk, as VGC summarises Pilestedt’s argument, is fragmentation. If Helldivers 2 stays popular, a third game that plays much the same would only divide the audience. Pilestedt said a Helldivers 3 only makes sense if it’s distinct enough for both games to exist side by side, and that “the biggest competitor to a Helldivers 3 would be Helldivers 2.”

He also took a swipe at the wider live-service market, saying the industry is panicking because the old live-service tricks no longer work. For now, he said, improving Helldivers 2 every day makes more sense than “throwing away its momentum”.

The numbers back up the idea that there’s momentum to protect. VGC points to SteamDB data showing that Helldivers 2 is down from its extremely successful launch period but still draws healthy daily player counts. The game launched on PS5 and PC in 2024, then reached Xbox Series X|S last summer. It became PlayStation’s fastest-selling game launch ever, selling 12 million copies across PC and PS5 in its first 12 weeks, a figure Sony said “far exceeded expectations”.

What it means for players

For anyone playing Helldivers 2 today, the message is continuity: the studio’s resources are going into updates, not a successor. Nothing Pilestedt said rules out a future Helldivers 3, but he set a high bar for one. It would need to be a clear departure rather than a straight follow-up. Whatever the small prototype team is building hasn’t been named, and Arrowhead hasn’t said whether it’s part of the Helldivers series at all.