Helldivers 2 studio CEO says it’s not being acquired by PlayStation

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios is not being acquired by Sony, according to its CEO.

Speculation has been spreading throughout social media following the huge success of the online co-op shooter, which is PlayStation‘s biggest PC launch to date.

After X user @NextGenPlayer posted a mocked up image of the PlayStation Studios logo and the Arrowhead logo with the message “welcome to the family”, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt replied saying the image, and the news, were untrue.

“This is fake, unless I’ve missed something,” he replied. “Also, a really shitty old logo from 2008 or so when we just started the studio.”

In a similar discussion, one user told Pilestedt: “They say you sold out to Sony.”

“In that case, this would be the first I hear about it,” he replied.

Perhaps pre-empting the speculation, Pilestedt posted a message on X on Monday in which he wrote: “We are not owned. We are independently owned! I mean, we are owned, but only by the founders (including me) of the studio.”

Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and available on PS5 and PC, Helldivers 2 has been a huge success, particularly on Steam, where it continues to sit on the top 10 most played games and at one point hit a concurrent peak of 458,709 players.

Having resolved the server issues that players had been facing since the game’s release last month, Pilestedt recently said the studio can now switch its attention to improving the title and working on new content.

“Now we have time to focus on improvements to the title and resume our original plan,” he said. “Many exciting things upcoming.”