Helldivers / Magicka devs working on third-person online game
Arrowhead tease their latest project, describing it as a ‘natural transition’.
Arrowhead Studios, the developers of Helldivers and the Magicka series (above), are working on a new third-person online co-op game, The Indie Game Website can reveal.
Speaking as part of an interview to be published on the site later this week, Arrowhead co-founder Johan Pilestedt (above – front row, second-left) confirmed that the game will not feature the local multiplayer that made Helldivers so popular, instead opting for a sole focus on online co-op.
Explaining the reasons for the shift in perspective, Pilestedt said: “We are moving into a realm where we want to expose more people to our games, and the primary way we can do that is to move the game into a different perspective. So we’re making a third-person game this time around.”
He added: “That also means that local co-op is not something that we’re focusing on for this next title and instead we’re going to make it purely online co-op.”
Pilestedt described the new game as being a “natural transition” for the studio.
“We have to go down this route,” he said. “We have to see how can we expose a lot more players to our bizarre way of making games where we don’t adhere to a lot of the kind of conventions that exist within the gaming industry. We try to play a lot with the emotion of the people playing the game and also how people interact as they’re playing the game… I think at least as much happens between the people playing a game together as [it] does within the game. So we want to really experiment with that.”
While Pilestedt was reluctant to reveal any further details, if Arrowhead Studios’ past games are anything to go by – such as Helldivers, winner of Handheld Game of the Year in the DICE Awards 2016, and Magicka, winner of Game of the Year in the Swedish Game Awards 2008 – this will surely be one to watch. We’ll be sure to keep you updated with new details as they emerge.
Additional reporting by Noah Graham.