Arrowhead rules out Helldivers 3, citing Helldivers 2 as its main rival

Arrowhead Game Studios is not developing Helldivers 3, chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt said Oct. 23, 2026, because Helldivers 2 would be the sequel’s main rival, in comments to Rock Paper Shotgun.

Pilestedt said Oct. 23, 2026 that Arrowhead would consider a sequel only if it stood apart from Helldivers 2 enough for both games to coexist. The studio otherwise prefers improving Helldivers 2 rather than discarding its momentum.

According to Pilestedt, 95 percent of the studio’s staff stays on Helldivers 2 while a small team works on a new prototype. The studio currently has around 150 people on the books. He noted that many studios expand quickly after a big success. “Studio-wise, we want to grow on our own terms and know when to stop,” he said.

Pilestedt described the game as a third space where people can spend a lot of time, yet step away for months or years and still find community and fun upon returning. He said Oct. 24, 2026 that “a continuation turns the game into a lifelong hobby, like LEGO or Warhammer.”

Helldivers 2 arrived in 2024 and remains incredibly popular for Arrowhead Game Studios. ComicBook.com says player counts remain strong nearly three years after the game arrived. Rock Paper Shotgun put the Steam live player count at 47,097 as of Oct. 23, 2026, excluding console players. ComicBook.com ties this ongoing popularity to the studio’s reluctance to make a sequel.

Work is underway on a live-action movie based on Helldivers. ComicBook.com connects the film and the enduring player base to the franchise’s ongoing success since Helldivers 2’s 2024 debut.

Pilestedt said Arrowhead has no plan to make Helldivers 3 unless it differs greatly from Helldivers 2, its current Sony-backed live service. PSX Extreme summarized Pilestedt’s reasoning that a similar release would pit Arrowhead against itself, with a good chunk of Helldivers 2 players likely moving to the new sequel. Pilestedt laid out two options: a sequel different enough to stand alone, or players drifting away. He said Oct. 24, 2026 that “The industry is panicking because the old live-service tricks don’t work anymore.”

Arrowhead prefers building onto Helldivers 2 for the long haul rather than releasing a sequel that forces players to start over from scratch, which Pilestedt said would disrupt the active community. He explained Oct. 23, 2026 that continuing to improve the current game makes more sense than abandoning its momentum.

If Helldivers 2 player counts drop in the years ahead, Arrowhead’s plans could change, Pilestedt said Oct. 23, 2026. Under those conditions the studio might decide a clean break through a new sequel makes sense to attract new and returning players, though it does not seem close to happening.

Shams Jorjani, Arrowhead’s CEO, says the studio could back the game for 10 years or longer as long as players keep playing and paying. Jorjani made the comment Dec. 26, 2025, amid the studio’s plan to evolve Helldivers 2 rather than build a separate sequel. In 2024, Pilestedt teased that enlarging Helldivers 2’s team is not impossible and comes up often in Arrowhead discussions.

At the end of 2024, Pilestedt said Arrowhead was evolving Helldivers 2 toward a third game rather than making an entirely new one. Arrowhead wants to introduce sequel-defining features into Helldivers 2 to effectively evolve it into a third game, including “eight player missions,” Pilestedt said Dec. 26, 2025. He also envisions larger open world maps where squads might run into another Helldivers team and join forces for bigger challenges. Operations affecting other teams would play up the scale of the Galactic War.

A new game is in development at Arrowhead, 100 percent self-funded, and it uses Unreal Engine 5 rather than the Autodesk Stingray/Bitsquid engine behind Helldivers 2. The studio is not building Helldivers 3 from scratch; this is a separate project. The engine change results in technical debt, the extra work that comes from relying on older technology. Arrowhead says Helldivers 2 fans will spot the new game’s DNA, and that it stays close to Helldivers.

The original Helldivers used a top-down view, but Helldivers 2 switched to third-person gunnery with more focus on physics and believable weapon handling. Rock Paper Shotgun provided this history Oct. 23, 2026 while considering what direction a future entry might take.