'Helldivers 2' Chief Creative Officer Attempts To Explain His Claim That He Brainwashed Players To Fight For Fascism
Johan Pilestedt, the Chief Creative Officer for Arrowhead Studios and Helldivers 2, doubled down on his claim that he brainwashed players to fight for fascism with Helldivers 2.
During a presentation at the Game Developers Conference PC Gamer reported that Pilestedt said, “What is Helldivers 2, fundamentally? It would probably be fun to play a co-op action shooter where you’re put in the shoes of the evil side grunts of pop culture … how many seconds would you be able to survive?"
From there, he said, “We asked ourselves, could we brainwash an entire community to fight for a fascist state? Would they? Would we be okay with that? And turns out, yeah, actually.”
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After claiming he was engaging in brainwashing players with the game, he seemingly tried to downplay it saying, “We do it all in fun and good spirits, and we actually try to get people to recognize the science of what is a totalitarian state. If you start wearing the same uniform as everybody else and do salutes constantly, you might be in a totalitarian regime.”
Pilestedt went on to highlight that totalitarian regimes create pleasing aesthetics, “There’s something totalitarian regimes are really good at: pleasing aesthetics.”
Furthermore, he admitted that following the game’s release he and his company were approached by the United Nations to give a “talk, in some form, about psychological defense against manipulation.”
Pilestedt initially responded to PC Gamer’s coverage of his comments which focused on how he and Arrowhead were approached by the United Nations. He wrote on X, “I was a bit uncareful with how I expressed this, and didn't realize it could be picked up as something negative. Should've been more clear. They reached out to us after the game blew up to talk about ‘what role satire in games play in psychological defense against totalitarianism’. The quote on us wanting to ‘brainwash’ the community was made as a note on getting everyone to roleplay the message of totalitarian state of Super Earth.”
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After reading the article, he then admitted, “Actually, reading the article fully I think it covers it pretty well, but the title is a bit clickbaity.”
He later added that he was trying to “help make the industry better” and felt he was “being misrepresented.”
As for what he meant by brainwashing the players, he attempted to clarify, “I was more talking about the community yelling traitor and going with the role-playing :)”
He added, “Or course everyone knows its a joke, but for satire to work, you need to play it straight.”
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Pilestedt also attempted to explain his comments in a reply to former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern aka Grummz.
He described Kern as a “always the ragebaiter” and then stated, “The other way around. Role-playing something gives you the tools to be cautious of it in the real world. Not tricking anyone, just fun to play the part of ‘the baddies’.”
When asked for clarification on what he meant by “brainwashing,” he did not reply.
He did go on to claim that “there are no good/ bad guys in the traditional sense in HD. Everything is a gray zone. But Super Earths exploitation of its own population and silencing of opposing views is, in democratic standards, bad.”
He previously stated this in response to another individual as well, “I should've been a bit more careful with my wording. To us it was always obvious that Helldivers are ‘the baddies’ - just look at the propaganda, and skulls! :)”
Then in a follow-up, he pivoted and said its up to the player to determine who is in the wrong.
He wrote, “We let the audience make up their minds about what they think. (For us it was a way to move the story forward), and may be something we explore in the future. Who started the war again is, according to super earth, the bugs. But who's to say that what super earth reports to its citizens is the truth.”
At this point, it appears Pilestedt has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about and as Norm MacDonald said, “It sounds like some f***ing commie gobbledygook.”
What do you make of Pilestedt’s attempts at clarification?
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He's caught between getting canceled for supporting the "Fash" and killing his game sales by being the "Woke".
Scylla and Charybdis, baby.
Enjoy the fall from the dark horse, Pilestedt.
He can't even keep his lame story straight. It's like watching a compulsive liar getting caught in his own lies.