Currently, Helldivers 2 is a premium cooperative shooter, but initially, the developers considered a different distribution model, and the release could have happened much earlier.
Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani continues to answer community questions, and recently, during a conversation with fans in Discord*, he shared a bit about the evolution of Helldivers 2:
«HD2 started as an AA game, then the scope expanded — it turned into a launch game for PS5, then switched to the f2p [free-to-play] model, and then returned to the premium model (I may have mixed up the order of events) — so the goal changed several times, and the foundation of this large tower was laid for a small bungalow on the beach. All of this = technical debt = for us, performance remains at an average level.»
- *(violates the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation)