Helldivers 2 director Pilestedt announces he’s going on a “sabbatical”, and when he returns, he’ll “start working on the next Arrowhead game”

Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt has tweeted that he’s taking a “sabbatical” from working on the game in order to get a much-needed break following about a decade straight of helldiving. He’s coming back through, and says he’ll start working on Arrowhead’s next game when he does.

While he’s been a key figure in terms of Helldivers 2 since the beginning, often using social media and Discord to chat to players directly about changes and things they’d like to see from the game, this isn’t the first time Pilestedt’s opted to switch up the role he’s playing at the studio. Back in May last year, he switched to being chief creative officer after handing the CEO reigns to Shams Jorjani, in order to focus more closely on helping develop HD2.

Now, though, he’s decided to step back and take “a sabbatical for a while”, in order to be able to spend more time enjoying his life outside of game development.

“I know a lot of you are going to think ‘por qué?’ – well, while you have enjoyed Helldivers 2 for almost a year, I have been living it since early 2016, and with [the original] Helldivers it’s since 2013,” Pilestedt explained, “11 years of working ‘around the clock’ on the same IP has made me set aside family, friends and my lovely wife… and myself. I am going to take some time now to redeem what was lost from all of those that supported me for over a decade.”

He added: “I am sure my friends at Arrowhead will do their utmost in the meantime to deliver amazing stuff to Helldivers 2. When I’m back – I will start working on the next Arrowhead game.”

Naturally, the Helldivers 2 community’s been quick to thank Pilestedt for all he’s done for the game and series so far, with Reddit being full of threads of players offering a Super Earth salute to the developer. Though, some are a bit concerned about how Arrowhead will fill the creative leadership void Pilestedt could leave in terms of Helldivers 2 while he’s away, especially since it sounds like he’ll be picking up a new project when he returns.

For now, we’ll just have to wait and see, but so far Pilestedt’s sabbatical seemingly isn’t seeing him take a break from game development completely – about two hours after announcing it, he revealed that he’s kicked it off by attending a game jam with Arrowhead’s most senior staff.

“Sometimes, you’ve just got to reconnect with yourself and your bros,” he said of the jam in a reply, “The journey is sometimes the goal.” Very philosopical, that’s definitely a man on sabbatical.