Proof that when you give devs the time they need, they make a game people actually like
Arrowhead initially planned to make Helldivers 2 in 3 years—instead it took 7 years, 11 months, and 26 days
Submitted 11 months ago by Goronmon@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Infynis@midwest.social 11 months ago
PrettyLights@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yet the game still constantly crashes and has weapons and armor that have no effects.
xep@kbin.social 11 months ago
Making games is difficult.
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I’m not in software dev but 8 years seems a long time to make a game like this. I love the game and play it daily, but it’s not that deep. It’s has 5 maps and 20 guns and 2 kinds of enemies. That doesn’t doesn’t seem like an 8 year dev time.
kromem@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The level of detail in Helldivers 2 is insane for the type of game and company size.
Deformable terrain and buildings, enemy animations when you shoot off different limbs and they keep moving towards you, your cape burns off more and more as you use your jetpack, etc.
Call of Duty has 3,000 devs working on their titles.
Arrowhead has around 100 employees total.
I very much believe this game took that long with a team that size, and it shows and is a large part of why it’s been so successful.
Schmeckinger@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Also all of that in a engine that’s deprecated for years.
krdo@programming.dev 11 months ago
Likely a lot of time was spent iterating and experimenting with different ideas, testing out concepts, tweaking, etc. Haven’t played the game but I do work as a software developer.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Probably, especially if you consider that the first Helldivers game was a top-down shooter.
zelifcam@lemmy.world 11 months ago
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Probably to politely invite contrasting opinions and experiences from people in the field
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Because this feels unusual but I’m not an expert and I can’t say whether that amount of time is truly usual or not. I’m in manufacturing and when people say what I said, then it’s usually as an invitation to discuss the topic.
JDPoZ@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’m guessing they went back to the drawing board several times - probably because they felt their sequel wasn’t really as evolved or as fun as what they had hoped it would be, so they shifted I’m guessing from their overhead view to the behind the player 3rd person style game we know now at some point after churning at it for a couple years at least…
Like you know that Doom 2016 was the 3rd complete from scratch redo from what they originally started working on after Doom 3, right?
This sort of thing sometimes happens in creative projects; like when you hear a movie took like 7 years to make, it’s not necessarily that they literally shot scenes every week for the same film that whole time. It’s that the project was shelved, or they changed directors, or the studio lost interest for a while or they got a new script or something.
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 11 months ago
No, I had no idea.
Aphelion@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Star Citizen has entered chat
Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
“Server meshing is just beside the corner!”
GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Hahahahahaha
Sanctus@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Pretty sure the maps have static meshes but their placement is randomized. So the maps may be similar with handmade pieces, but those pieces are randomly placed to generate the map.
You’re leaving out Joel completely. They had to make that system for him to GM us, and I like how we choose what new weapons and stuff we unlock with our actions.
MufinMcFlufin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I haven’t played in a week or two but I’m pretty sure that certain stratagems can deform the terrain, like the 500kg.
Butterpaderp@lemmy.world 11 months ago
IIRC they developed the game on an older game engine that’s no longer supported
kopasz7@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Discontinued 6 years ago in 2018. Wild.
Goronmon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’m going to provide a different reply than the others.
Yes, I would consider 8 years a long time to make a game like Helldivers 2.
But all that means is that a studio in a good position to make that type of game would likely be able to do it in a much shorter amount of time.
In this case, we have a studio that was, in hindsight, too small and trying to be too ambitious in the game they were trying to make. So, trying to grow a studio at the same time you are trying to build an overly ambitious piece of software is going to have multiplying affects on how long said project will take.
magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 11 months ago
They probably developed, refined and scratched 100s of ideas before they landed to the final game.
JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It has two factions of enemies, each with a dozen or so units…