Video Games

Helldivers 2 studio gets new CEO

Johan Pilestedt wants to focus on development role

Marco Wutz

Arrowhead / Sony

Johan Pilestedt, former CEO of Arrowhead, has been a steady anchor for Helldivers 2 players in their turbulent battle for space democracy – transparent and honest as well as always prepared to do his part in contributing to community memes, he’s been recognized as one of the industry leaders who are still close to their players. 

While this side of him will surely remain the same, his role at Arrowhead has changed as of May 22, 2024, because he has stepped down as the company’s CEO and will be succeeded by Shams Jorjani, the former chief business development officer at Paradox Interactive as well as chairman of Hooded Horse, the indie publisher behind titles like Against the Storm and Manor Lords, who lost no time to show his allegiance to democracy by pronouncing his, uh, love for it.

Pilestedt remains Arrowhead’s chairman as well as chief creative officer and stated that this step would allow him to continue to be closely involved with game development. “I am taking the role of Chief Creative Officer, which means I will spend MORE time with the team and 100% of my focus on the games and community,” Pilestedt explained on social media site X.

“Over the last year going to the launch of Helldivers 2, I’ve been pulled more towards the business side of things, and not able to focus as much on the creative side. That made me realize I needed to make some decisions, both for the success of the business but also myself,” he explained in an interview with GamesIndustry.

With Arrowhead set to grow in size over the next couple of months and years, Pilestedt decided to hire a dedicated CEO to guide the business through this crucial phase.

Jorjani described his role as being “the humble servant behind the scenes.”

Helldivers 2 launched earlier this year and became a massive success on Steam for the studio as well as publisher Sony.

Published
Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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