There are few individuals as mysterious as Helldivers 2's galactic game master Joel – the man pulling all the strings of the war, constantly working to evolve the third-person shooter's evolving narrative, as well as issuing Major Orders to us all.
Arrowhead says Helldivers 2's D&D style game master is 'something that a video game has never done before' and knew it would be 'divisive' with players
05.03.2024 - 18:29 / techradar.com
Arrowhead Game Studios has said that it knew that Helldivers 2's game master would be «divisive» with players.
Last week (February 29) it was revealed by Arrowhead that the third-person online shooter has one developer that has the role of 'Game Master' named Joel, who is in charge of continuously wreaking havoc across the galaxy and pulling the strings in the galactic war against the Terminids and Automatons.
Evidently, this reveal prompted some community discussion, with some players feeling uncertain about the idea of a Game Master messing with their game, so to speak.
In response to the discussion, community manager Katherine 'Baskinator' Baskin explained on the game's official Discord that Arrowhead knew the feature would cause some division but says that the idea creates a sense of uniqueness in the game's world (via GamesRadar).
«Most live service games have something like a game master, but it's a series of automated events,» Baskinator said. «Buffs/debuffs/events are activated automatically according to some schedule… instead of what we're doing here, which is a person who can analyze the campaign as it's happening and make more sensitive choices. We knew it would be divisive! But we hope overall that people enjoy it.»
Baskinator added elsewhere in response to a community member that Arrowhead already accepts that some players won't like this feature, but that's why it announced it before the game's release, saying that the team «tried to do our best to explain that this is like playing a D&D campaign with a human being. He's the dungeon master for millions.»
It was also mentioned it's something that Arrowhead wants to improve upon and make the Game Master a deeper part of the storytelling, similar to the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons.
«This was a very big experiment for the studio, really, and it's something that a video game has never done before,» Baskinator explained. «I would love to see the GM's decisions roll into the overall narrative worldbuilding of the game. To me, this makes it feel more like a real war with real stakes, even though it's just a video game.»
In addition, Arrowhead feels that the idea that the GM is working against the player is «unfair» with Baskin explaining that «it's more like he's trying to respond to the natural push/pull of players in certain areas and either raise the challenge or lower the challenge, depending on how he reads the data.»
Despite its rocky launch, Helldivers 2 has gone on to become one of the most popular Steam games ever and recently hit an all-time peak player count of over 411,000.
For more, be sure to check out our list of the best multiplayer games, along with our list of the best PS5 games.
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