Helldivers 2 Director Denounces DEI
The signs of a cultural shift in the entertainment industry continue to pop up. They have been slowly emerging since the beginning of 2024, as seen in Chris Gore’s report about Marvel Studios firing their activist producers and preparing for a sea change from their All New, All Different push. But since the U.S. Presidential election in November, things have gone into overdrive – no doubt because it was the most glaring evidence yet that America was not with them and the wokesters and their agenda. The latest example comes from the video game industry, specifically Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt. Taking to X on New Year’s Eve, Pilestedt asked users what they wanted to see from Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead in 2025, to which one user responded, “Never add dei to your games.” Pilestedt seemed to agree:
If it doesnt add to the game experience, it detracts. And games should be a pure pursuit of amazing moments.
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) December 31, 2024
He’s right, of course, but perhaps he could’ve been clearer in his dismissal of DEI to send a real message about using identity politics and other sociopolitical ideas in gaming. And when another user asked how DEI would have made Helldivers 2 a better game, Pilestedt did just that:
I don’t like labels. But mankind is united in its extreme xenophobia on Super Earth. #Inclusion so, maybe that’s DEI?
I really don’t care. Make good games, don’t make a contemporary political statement.
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) January 1, 2025
Pilestedt’s response is an example of how messaging and themes are done properly. He had to read into the story of Helldivers 2 to pull out subtext related to DEI, and even that is something he admits is a guess before ultimately saying it doesn’t matter as long as the game is good. And if you go back and read or watch why gamers had so much fun with Helldivers 2 when it was huge, it was because they could get lost in a fun action game where they got to kill aliens or robots. It seems like a no-brainer – let gamers have fun playing games – but it’s becoming rarer and rarer these days, as games like Dragon Age: The Veilguard (with its transgender ram monsters and lectures on proper pronoun use), Concord (with its DEI character designs), and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (which let Harley Quinn mock, lecture, and execute Batman – and not just any Batman but the Kevin Conroy-voiced Batman of the Batman: Arkham series) getting all the headlines… if not all the money. And that’s the rub: those woke disasters cost their distributors a ton ($200 million in Warner Bros.’ case), led to entire studios being shuttered, and brought DEI consulting firms like Sweet Baby Inc. into the light. Leaving that failure recipe in the dust seems like a no-brainer, and while the business end of the equation is certainly a factor, the election showed them that this is not a blip.
But Pilestedt went even further after some more comments on his post. Another user accused him of baiting with his initial post, and Pilestedt said:
Thank you
But even so, what society will we become if we distance ourselves from each other for the fear of others? Discourse is the foundation of a healthy society, and diversity of opinion is how we collectively decide where to go.
Conversation is the relief valve of…
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) January 3, 2025
Again, he’s countering the DEI narrative by saying that diversity of thought and opinion is what’s really needed, not just in entertainment but in all of society. That’s lost when you engineer a game to cater to people with specific political opinions. Using the term “fear of others” to make his point is brilliant because it’s using the arguments for DEI against it. Fearing those different from you doesn’t stop a race or gender; it includes people who disagree with you, something DEI proponents deny, which brings the whole house of cards tumbling down. And when another user talked about diversity of thought acting as “a release valve” and making society healthier, Pilestedt agreed:
Agree. There is always going to be that way. If I say something to 100 people, I will have said 100 different things.
That’s why follow-up questions are so important. As long as they are in good faith to seek understanding, not to try to ‘get’ someone.
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) January 3, 2025
We can be reasonably sure that Arrowhead games are safe from woke nonsense, but what does it mean for the rest of the video game industry? In a vacuum, probably nothing, but Pilestedt’s comments aren’t being made in a vacuum. Aside from the examples I used earlier, Ubisoft – the developer behind Star Wars Outlaws and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows – just saw its stock drop massively, which is not a good sign for a studio with a major release just a month away. It also comes on the heels of the massive success of Stellar Blade and especially Black Myth: Wukong, two games that were perceived to have eschewed wokeness and DEI (which is kind of like saying apples and red delicious apples). It also comes as some of President Trump’s most ardent tech-sector opponents are lining up to kiss his… ring. Under these circumstances, I think we may see more studios take up Johan Pilestedt’s philosophy. Well, Pilestedt’s and his:
Let us know what you think of Johan Pilestedt’s DEI denunciation in the comments!
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