Helldivers 2 boss warns of more ‘unnecessarily brutal’ layoffs due to battle royale saturation

With the gaming industry continuing to struggle, ‘Helldivers 2’ boss Johan Pilestedt has argued there will be more “unnecessarily brutal” layoffs unless studios move away from making battle royales.

‘Helldivers 2’ creative director Johan Pilestedt has warned there will be more “unnecessarily brutal” layoffs in the gaming industry unless studios move away from making battle royales.

Over the past couple of years, the industry has suffered thousands of layoffs and studio closures due to financial difficulties, and now Arrowhead boss Pilestedt – who oversees the popular multiplayer-shooter ‘Helldivers 2’ – has insisted developers and publishers are doomed to a “vicious circle of death and rebirth” unless they shift focus to genres other than battle royale titles such as ‘Fortnite’.

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference 2025, Pilestedt said: “The games industry is caught in a vicious circle of death and rebirth. Every so often we lay off thousands of people suddenly, and then nobody understands why, and I think it’s just because we converge.

“We will always go through the cycles of death and rebirth, but now that cycle is unnecessarily brutal because we don’t diversify enough. We need to make more types of games because people are playing more than ever and still we are unable to stay in business. It’s ridiculous.

“If everybody stopped making battle royales and made [different] games we wouldn’t be in this position.”

The Arrowhead boss added too many publishers “play it safe” with remakes and sequels to popular IPs, which Pilestedt argued ultimately suffocates studios as they aren’t taking risks with new games.

He explained: “A lot of publishers – I’m sorry, my dear publisher friends – try to play it safe by taking safe bets. But one thing that I can guarantee is that those safe bets are a death sentence for the studios that try to make it.

“We are in the business of taking risks, and if you don’t take risks, we’re never gonna be able to achieve success. Few people believed that ‘Helldivers’ would amount to anything, and yet here we are.”