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The Helldivers series went from a relatively niche release that very few people had heard of to a global juggernaut seemingly overnight after the release of Helldivers 2. Despite a very dedicated development team and an engaged community, it has seen its share of problems in recent weeks due to various reasons. Arrowhead Game Studios still has a very good reputation in the gaming community, but it feels like the game is walking a tightrope right now, and the team needs to navigate the next few months carefully if Helldivers 2 is to remain a success.

U/Ebicat took to Reddit to discuss the recent Helldivers 2 01.000.400 update as well as Arrowhead Game Studios’ future plans. They also note that they are a game developer and have delivered over 20 games of varying quality and success, which really gives a unique insight into a developer’s mindset that we don’t get to hear often when looking from an outside perspective.

They begin the post by saying that “the latest patch brought some initial relief, only for it to wear off quickly. As an example, no ship modules were touched in the last patch, but Supply Packing broke… meanwhile, new features have been released for months but never worked, looking at your improved missile defense for hours. The list goes on and on as you all know.

According to the developer, this is likely caused by the choice of engine, which is the discontinued Autodesk Stingray, which was used for the original Helldivers game, as well as Helldivers 2 and three Warhammer titles. The engine was discontinued in 2018.

The developer goes on to say, “The first game was made on this engine, and that’s probably why they chose it for the second game, but I’m pretty sure it was a huge mistake. When you’re using something like Unity, Unreal, etc… you’re part of a community of people solving problems together, you gain a lot from having an actively developed engine. I bet that’s one of the biggest reasons for the mess they’re in now.

Engines like Unreal Engine and Unity have become two of the most popular choices for game developers and thousands of games have been created with them from small single developer projects to big AAA releases including Fortnite, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Tekken 8, Sea of Thieves, Pokémon Go, Genshin Impact and many more. These engines have an incredibly dedicated community behind them and, more importantly, are actively being worked on by their creators. It really seems like an odd choice to stick with a discontinued engine that isn’t up to par, and it might explain a lot in terms of the technical issues Helldivers 2 continues to be plagued with.

The developer captioned the post saying, “I hope they can fix their issues because their community’s patience is wearing thin. This latest patch was supposed to come out with just fixes and no regressions, but it just isn’t, including things like performance and crashes. I also hope they do a serious post mortem on their processes and choices on this matter.

The developer won’t confirm what titles they’ve worked on to allow anonymity, but notes that some of the games they’ve worked on have shipped “10-25+ million copies.” Much of this post reflects many of the community’s opinions and thoughts on the state of the game. But the team has been using the engine for a decade now, so despite its limitations, they are probably the most experienced team when it comes to using the Stingray.

With Johan Pilestedt now shifting his focus to game development, it seems to be heading in the right direction if the recent update and Viper Commandos Warbond are anything to go by. With so many changes to the game this past week, we highly recommend checking out our guide to the best weapons and best armor for Helldivers 2 so you can keep your gear up to date to ensure maximum Liber-tea is served of machines and terminals.