Arrowhead Studios wants to remain independent even after Helldivers 2’s massive success: “The humbleness and the desire to just make great games is the only reason we exist”

Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 has been the surprise hit of 2024, with the co-op, live-service shooter not only selling a staggering 12 million copies in its first 12 weeks on sale for the PS5 and PC — but also becoming the fastest-selling Playstation game of all time, beating out even the mighty God of War Ragnarok, the previous record-holder at 11 million copies in its first 75 days post-launch.

Despite the game’s massive success, Arrowhead isn’t looking to drastically expand their operations (Arrowhead consists of roughly 100 employees) or sell off the company. Naturally though, Arrowhead does have some goals set for what they’d like to achieve post-Helldivers 2, which include reaching levels of success that attach prestige to their name similar to that of two of the most well-known and highly-regarded video game publishers in the world.

“We pride ourselves on being an independent studio,” former Arrowhead CEO and current Chief Creative Officer Johan Pilestedt told Gameindustry.biz in a recent interview. “We have to see what the future holds, but there’s nothing in the plans where we want to be acquired by somebody. I want to see how high we can fly. And bringing Shams on board, we have a good potential to realize that future of turning into the next From Software or Blizzard.”

New Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani added that fans of Helldivers 2 will likely see more co-op games from the company in the studio and that one of their goals is to inspire future game creators to want to work at their studio much the way many avid gamers wanted to work at Blizzard in the past.

Helldivers 2/Arrowhead

“The goal of the studio is to make really great co-op games. We really want to turn Arrowhead into a flagship studio,” Jorjani added, “where people who want to make these kind-of games say to themselves: ‘I want to work at Arrowhead.’ When we were growing up, we really wanted to work at Blizzard, it was one of the bucket list places to work at. I think Arrowhead has the potential to be that.”

Jorjani ended the interview on a refreshing note, particularly in today’s current gaming scene that sees many popular video game publishers prioritizing sales, in-game monetization and microtransactions over everything else.

“We don’t run the business for monetary gain,” Pilestedt said. “The humbleness and the desire to just make great games is the only reason we exist.”

What do you think of the fact that Arrowhead Studios wants to remain independent even after Helldivers 2’s massive success? Do you think they should remain an independent company as they strive to emulate companies like From Software and Blizzard’s success? Let us know in the comments.