The director for Helldivers 2 Johan Pilestedt has been on social media responding to an article regarding the totalitarian themes in the game.

As covered by PC Gamer, Pilestedt recently spoke at the 2025 Game Developers Conference in a panel called “Helldivers 2: Capturing Lightning in a Bottle”. During this panel, the Arrowhead CCO discussed the fascistic trappings of Super Earth. One line in particular stood out where he says: “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”.

The line has since been taken out of context of tongue-in-cheek roleplaying, with some claiming that Helldivers 2 “manipulates” players into being fascists despite openly wearing its sarcasm on its sleeve. For anyone who’s played Helldivers 2 for more than 5 minutes, they ought to know that the “Democracy” of Super Earth is just as legitimate as the democracy of the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea.

Since the article released, Pilestedt has been responding to fans and critics, pointing out that it’s strictly roleplay and that it can be fun to “be the baddies”. He goes on to point out that “gamers are smart” and can tell fiction from reality when playing games as Storm Troopers, Nazis, etc.

Hey, we have talked about it at the studio. We believe most people feel comfortable since it’s all make belief and role-playing. Gamers are smart and can differentiate between jokingly rooting for the empire in star wars or the mobile infantry in starship troopers.

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) March 20, 2025