Defending a kinda wimpy Killzone crossover gun, Helldivers 2's Johan Pilestedt says the game's past balance woes were due to weapons being 'seen as game objects' and that 'balance doesn't matter'

helldivers 2 killzone crossover
(Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios)

Helldivers 2, as I mentioned last month, has been a complete rollercoaster during its first year of updates. Balance in particular has been a consistent pain point. As in, those funny little patches that make your guns good or bad and start flame wars: The railgun nerfs that launched a thousand ships. And 2025 is kicking off with another one.

The latest in this long line of balance discussions has been inspired by the recent Killzone crossover weapons, whose controversy saw their latter half offered for free as penance. CCO Johan Pilestedt has now waded into the discourse to to dispense some Super Earthly wisdom: "Balance doesn't matter," he reckons. Erm.

Alright, in fairness, that's just one part of a Reddit comment made by Pilestedt on the subject. One weapon in particular has been put in the crosshairs: The PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle. This weapon is in a bit of a weird spot—it fires a burst of three shots with a mag of nine rounds, as a sniper rifle, meaning it chews through its ammo very quickly. Its damage also isn't really up to snuff with its inefficiency. In fact, as the author of the thread Pilestedt is replying to notes, it's outclassed by the PLAS-101 Purifier, a weapon we specifically called out after the huge balance patches back in November as a "bot-killing phenomenon".

The Purifier is similar to the PLAS-39 in that it's a charge-based weapon, but it also comes with considerably heftier damage, a more efficient clip, and it has a semi-auto mode for when you do want to spray and pray. It's both deadlier and more versatile than its Killzone crossover cousin, which would, let's not forget, have cost 600 Super Credits before Arrowhead gave it away for free.

In response, Pilestedt argues: "Weapons are what weapons are, balance doesn't matter. This is also what was wrong before. Things were seen as game objects rather than real weapons. If you like the [Killzone] fantasy, you may want to use it. It kills things, not useless. It could maybe use some tweaking, but unfortunately a three burst sniper with nine rounds per mag... isn't that great. But that's how the weapon works."

To be charitable, much of the community's past outrage has been at Arrowhead being anti-fun and too balance-focused with its number tweaking—in Pilestedt's own words, "every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed". Besides, it's only normal that, in a game which releases a batch of weapons every Warbond (for a combined pace of around 12 new weapons every three to five months) you're gonna have a hard time keeping things on an even keel.

Helldivers 2 is also a co-op game, not a PvP arena—so things like power fantasy, general feel, and baseline effectiveness are going to matter way more than a vague definition of fairness. However, simply shrugging at an underdog gun and saying "that's how the weapon works" in Killzone seems baffling, considering Helldivers 2 owes its recent success to uplifting its underperforming weapons, more than anything. Sure, it'd defeat the exercise of adding Killzone weapons if they didn't work like they do in that game, but I feel like that's a secondary concern compared to making it worth the price in Helldivers 2.

It may just boil down to verisimilitude (the feeling of 'realness') for Pilestedt, who adds: "I really despise the trope that snipers in games do more damage than rifles of the same caliber," Pilestedt adds. "It's so dumb." This tracks with a later comment in a separate thread where he laments the videogame logic of miniguns heating up the more you use them, something the design of miniguns is literally built around avoiding. "Any designer that designs miniguns that way should not work making shooters."

At the same time, this is a game where you're shooting aliens with plasma guns and mowing down giant insects with flamethrowers, realism only gets you so far. Gag weapons like the 2124 Constitution rifle are one thing, but this is a weapon that would've cost actual premium currency as part of a crossover event.

Disagreeing with how that game handled its gun design doesn't track as an excuse to make it wimpy when you'd planned to sell it for around $6 in premium currency—the only reason players aren't demanding their Super Credits back in droves is because Arrowhead changed its mind, and gave it away for free. I'd say the studio dodged a bullet, here, and it'd be good to study why that shot was fired in the first place.

Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

Read more
Helldivers 2 best weapons - A diver in the Freedom's Flame armour
The best Helldivers 2 weapons
An image of a citizen of Super Earth giving a PSA, holding his hands out in a calming manner while the word: INVASION is stamped in block-type over a screaming man crying for sweet liberty.
Arrowhead Games' heart grows three sizes as it swerves away from its controversial crossover plans for Helldivers 2's Killzone collab, offers the second half for free
helldivers 2 autocannon
Gun of the Year 2024: Helldivers 2's AC-8 Autocannon
A screenshot of Helldivers 2, depicting a Helldiver saluting while wearing an anthropomorphic facemask
Helldivers 2's latest warbond adds a stratagem I've craved since the galactic war started, a portable hellbomb
Spartan armour in Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 director decides to kick off 2025 by wading into a conversation about DEI: 'Make good games, don't make a contemporary political statement'
Fighting bandits
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's guns are very, very bad, but that's what makes them so fun: 'We knew it was going to be a meme weapon, but we were cool with it'
Latest in Third Person Shooter
The Marvel Rivals character Magik with her gold-colored sword extended toward the screen, her tights ripped
Marvel Rivals' devs like throwing in curveballs 'to make the roster more interesting,' meaning we'll probably get more characters like Squirrel Girl and Jeff the Land Shark
Marvel Rivals crosshairs - Star-Lord flying up towards the camera with his guns at the ready.
'We balance for fun, first and foremost': Marvel Games' executive producer discusses Marvel Rivals' priorities and why competitive balancing comes second
A Helldivers 2 soldier readies to draw his rootin' tootin' wild west pistol on some foolish automaton.
Helldivers 2's next warbond'll let you be a real space cowboy, and draw on those Automaton scum with a lever-action rifle
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam
Marvel Rivals characters - Hulk with his hands out as if he's grabbing the camera.
Marvel Rivals' growing roster of heroes scares me, but the game's director seems sure that all is under control: 'Everything is progressing smoothly'
Titus in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 reveal promo image
Praise be to the Omnissiah! Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 is officially in development
Latest in News
Ghoul in sunglasses
Some Fallout 76 players have encountered a 'major game-breaking bug' which either makes it impossible to complete the ghoul quest or just makes you temporarily invisible
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
Major performance issues aside, over half of Monster Hunter Wilds’ sales are from Steam alone
StarTech 3.3ft (1m) USB-C Cable with side screw locking mechanism on yellow and orange background
Remember those fiddly screw-locks for VGA and DVI-D? Bet you didn't know USB-C also has them
World of Goo 2 a giant octopus-worm spits out a structure of goo upon which other goo is flowing.
After launching as an Epic Store exclusive, World of Goo 2 dribbles onto Steam this spring: 'We’re grateful to Epic for funding development of the game'
An artistic image where a digital progress bar is represented by a physical wooden block.
The nail-biting, 100-hour BIOS update stream which garnered 88,000 peak views ends with a cut to black
A ghoul player character standing next to another ghoul
'You are hereby conscripted': Fallout 76 players demand newly-transformed ghoul players help them mine radioactive ore