I loveMagicka. It’s one of the most broken, poorly balanced games I’ve ever spent dozens of hours playing, and that’s not a joke. Arrowhead Games’ old classic actually shares a lot of DNA withHelldivers 2, and after looking into its development history, stuff’s begun to make sense.
For context, I’m basing a huge chunk of my thoughts in this article on three different sources:
The latter is anexcellentarticle in general, but more specifically, it’s just about all the insight you need into Arrowhead Games’ production capacities. It’s a mirror, too, of what’s going on withHelldivers 2at this time, asthe game just keeps jumping from one world-ending crisis into anotherwithout a pause.
I’m not interested in kickingHelldivers 2while it’s down at all. I enjoy it quite a lot even today,even as a solo player, and I genuinely believe it’s going to improveat some point. If you need a bit of hope in this regard, look no further than Pilestedt’s own little Q&A that recently went up on Discord. It’s good stuff, though it obviously remains to be seen whether Arrowhead can deliver all that.
That being what it is, I feel like it might be useful for those who aren’t familiar withMagickaandHelldivers 1to get a sense ofwhythis game is having so many problems. Because, really, though it might feel like Arrowhead is a mostly unknown quantity from a casual, mainstream point of view, this really couldn’t be further from the truth. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the studio is seemingly repeating some of the mistakes it did withMagickain the late aughts.
Helldivers 2 is a repeat of Magicka in some key ways, and that’s not a compliment
As I said before, you should read up on that interview with Pilestedt if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of what made (and broke!)Magickaback in the day. It’s an excellent article, and I genuinely feel it will help readers understand what might be going on withHelldivers 2in the background. Here are some pertinent facts to keep in mind if you don’t have the time to do so, though:
I’m sure you get the point by now. I’m not saying thatHelldivers 2is a scaled-up carbon copy of the problematic development ofMagicka, but I am saying that the two games appear to rhyme in some key ways. What does that mean, exactly? Maybe nothing. Possibly everything. This is the same studio we’re talking about, after all, with many of the same people spearheading its production pipelines and project management.
It’s not too late to start playingHelldivers 2, not by a long shot, but Arrowhead has been burning through player goodwill at a frankly ridiculous rate. I’m wondering just how many times theCEO or CCO will need to explain themselves (again) and promise to do better, only for thenext update to tank things further.
I still believeHelldivers 2is a good game. Frankly, Istillthink it’s one of the best releases of the year and beyond. It’s just that it’s turned out to be a bit of a hot potato for Arrowhead, and the studio seems not to have put on its gloves yet.
Unlike Magicka, Helldivers 2 still has a chance of rising beyond its problems
As it currently stands,Magickais kind of toast. The game is thoroughly broken and unplayable without a community patch, and there’s virtually no chance of it ever being officially fixed. There is Magicka 2, but it wasn’t made by Arrowhead at all, so it’s not relevant to my argument.
I genuinely believe that the last couple of months have just beenHelldivers 2‘s teething issues as Arrowhead scrambles to nudge itself into live-service operations mode. The game is simply too important both for Arrowhead and for Sony to keep driving it into the mud, and Pilestedt’s outlined plan for the game’s future updates is excellent.
For this to happen, though, I’m hoping that Arrowhead does end up looking back at what happened toMagicka. It’s an excellent example of what can happen to a fun, funny, and zeitgeisty game if it’s mishandled, and it really was Arrowhead’s doing at the time.
