The wild successes of Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 send a clear message: Let devs cook

Gaming IndustryThe wild successes of Helldivers 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 send a clear message: Let devs cookWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Arrowhead, Larian)

Helldiver and Astarion

Like many at PC Gamer, I’ve been enjoying a healthy amount of Helldiving the last two months. Whether I’m shoulders-deep in pulped bug biomass or cowering beneath a storm of automaton energy bolts, Helldivers 2 has been a refreshing surprise. I expected Helldivers 2 to be good, but not “unforeseeable appeal that knocks out back-end servers and leaves players in a weeks-long login purgatory” good—similar to how I couldn’t imagine Baldur’s Gate 3 consuming the entire gaming consciousness for the tail end of last year.

Helldivers 2 isn’t an anomaly. It’s the product of 13 years spent honing the craft of creating jolly, gratuitous meat grinders

While Helldivers 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 might look like sudden jackpot successes, they’re testaments to what can be achieved through continued, devoted iteration. They’re the products of development teams honing their collective craft across a decade or more. Arrowhead and Larian are studios who had the willingness—and all-too-rare freedom—to gamble on chasing a singular creative vision until the bet finally paid off, even if that sometimes meant risking bankruptcy.Oh, and they held onto the devs making their games. That probably helps. Who knew?

Arrowhead: The house Magicka built

YouTubeWatch On

YouTube

Developing the next surprise blockbuster is an easier problem to tackle if, like Arrowhead, you’ve basically been refining the same game since Obama was president. Helldivers 2 was a surprise to me, but it wouldn’t have been if I’d remembered that my history with Arrowhead games goes back more than a decade. Even though I’d played and loved it back in 2011, it took a casual mention from my editor to realize that, oh shit, these are theMagickafolks!As I rotated the two very different-looking games in my mind, cubelike, their similarities crystallized. In hindsight, Magicka’s DNA is visibly threaded across everything Arrowhead’s made. Mid-combat key combos to combine elemental magic would evolve into the ordinance input sequences in Helldivers, producing the same slapstick carnage. Magicka’s farcical fantasy was a premonition of the Helldivers sci-fi satire. And when Arrowhead drifted from the Magicka model, it was still improving its art of gratuitous multiplayer action in the firefights of Showdown Effect and co-op dungeon crawling in Gauntlet.Helldivers 2 isn’t an anomaly. It’s the product of 13 years spent honing the craft of creating jolly, gratuitous meat grinders where you punch in frantic button combinations to turn your foes and friends gleefully into mulch. The camera angle changed and now it’s orbital strikes instead of elemental spells, but Arrowhead’s been chipping away at the same block.

Larian: Ultima aspirations

Elevated arts

Keeping game devs around sure seems to help when you’re making games. Weird!

For both studios, those years spent pursuing the same creative visions meant that they could make the most of the major clear increases in production scale on their latest projects. They’d already had gold in their hands, but too few people could see its glimmer from an isometric camera angle.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

YouTubeWatch On

YouTube

It’s hard to overstate that Larian and Arrowhead were in unique positions to maintain creative control over how to deploy those additional resources. Unlike many development studios—really, unlike most studios in their tier of production—Arrowhead and Larian are private, independently-owned operations.Bloombergdescribed Larian as a “unicorn” company: With CEO and creative director Swen Vincke as its majority shareholder, Larian’s strategy and goals are entirely self-determined, leaving the studio free to “make creative decisions on the game without having to compromise due to financial pressures.”

Arrowhead, while smaller, enjoys a similar freedom with founder Johan Pilestedt as its CEO and creative lead.

Strong rosters

Image1of2The Arrowhead team(Image credit: Arrowhead)Members of Larian’s Dublin office(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Image1of2

The Arrowhead team(Image credit: Arrowhead)Members of Larian’s Dublin office(Image credit: Larian Studios)

The Arrowhead team(Image credit: Arrowhead)

Arrowhead’s team photo

Members of Larian’s Dublin office(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Larian’s Dublin team

(Image credit: Future)

Gaming industry layoffs 2023-2024

There are some asterisks here: Those percentage figures assume I was able to separate studio staff from contract employees and interns—a process that’s a little like reading tea leaves when, for example, “additional work” can be defined in any number of ways, depending on the studio’s convention. What’s less vague, however, is the fact that nearly every Larian employee who was first credited on Original Sin 2 and then on Baldur’s Gate 3 appears to have gotten a promotion along the way.

Those percentages stand stark against the backdrop of the ongoing devastation ofgame development layoffs—the latest dark chapter in an industry notorious for burnout, high turnover, and general career turmoil. A2023 IATSE surveyof games workers found that “less than half of respondents had made it to their seventh year in the business,” with two years being the most commonly reported career length. 42% of respondents described a lack of promotion opportunities at their workplace, with 37.9% of respondents characterizing working in games as unsustainable.With their breakaway successes, Helldivers 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 are testaments to what game developers can achieve when they have the ability to continue honing their craft. Of course, they can also leave you wondering: If more devs were given that chance, how many more of those successes would we see?

TOPICSLarian Studios

TOPICS

PRODUCTSBaldur’s Gate 3Helldivers 2Divinity: Original Sin 2Divinity: Original SinMagicka

PRODUCTS

More about gaming industryLords of the Fallen studio embraces fear of the DEI boogeyman, says it will not include ‘any social or political agendas’ in its gamesEpic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are ‘pretending to be Republicans’ to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately ‘rip off consumers and crush competitors’LatestToday’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11See more latest►

More about gaming industry

Lords of the Fallen studio embraces fear of the DEI boogeyman, says it will not include ‘any social or political agendas’ in its gamesEpic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are ‘pretending to be Republicans’ to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately ‘rip off consumers and crush competitors’

Lords of the Fallen (2023) promotional image - very large man with a very large hammer on a very large horse charging a very small man with a very small magic sword

Lords of the Fallen studio embraces fear of the DEI boogeyman, says it will not include ‘any social or political agendas’ in its games

Tim Sweeney

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are ‘pretending to be Republicans’ to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately ‘rip off consumers and crush competitors’

LatestToday’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11See more latest►

Latest

Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11

Wordle answers

Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11

See more latest►

Most Popular

The Witcher 3’s now 2-year-old bonus quest is our first taste of the ‘vibe’ CD Projekt is going for in The Witcher 4

2024 was the year updates for old games beat out all the new ones for me

Train like you game with this adventure-inspired workout

‘It’s simply impossible to make a difficulty level that’s just right for all players’: How Final Fantasy 14’s lead battle designer has been playing a precarious balancing game for Dawntrail’s dungeons and raids

Please join me in getting super excited for all the cool looking survival games coming in 2025 (and beyond)

Competitive shooters are at a crucial crossroads in 2025: ‘sweaty’ teamplay vs. casual fun

Call of Duty’s $28 Squid Game skins are the perfect crossover for our capitalist dystopia, and Activision knows exactly what it’s doing

These are the 14 biggest upcoming RPGs of 2025—get ready for another amazing year for the genre

Five new Steam games you probably missed (January 6, 2025)

I’ve seen enough: No more forcing singleplayer studios to make mediocre live service games

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

A bunch of the best Steam Deck accessories on a blue background.

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

Thank Goodness You’re Here review

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review

3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

4Ikea Utespelare desk review

Ikea Utespelare desk review

5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

Arrowhead: The house Magicka built#

Larian: Ultima aspirations#

Elevated arts#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

Strong rosters#

Arrowhead: The house Magicka built

Larian: Ultima aspirations

Elevated arts

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Strong rosters