If you're like me, the overwhelming popularity of Helldivers 2 has left you hungry for a remake of Starship Troopers: Paul Verhoeven's satirical, Leni Riefenstahl-directed anti-fascist entry about pearly Space Marines and their doomed war against an army of bugs.
And look, I know a lot You're like me in this regard, as discussions about Starship Troopers on my various social media feeds have increased by about 3000% since the release of Helldivers 2, with all sorts of people I'm taking part in a new watch, and I'm not the only one who noticed. Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Arrowhead, has also seen an increase in gifs of Johnny Rico actor Casper Van Dien due to the popularity of Helldivers and is excited.
“It's humbling, isn't it?” Pilestedt said in a recent interview with PC Gamer: “If you look at Arrowhead's history as a studio, we're all about our pop culture,” a trait that has been present in Arrowhead games since the beginning “We've grown.” We have the same interests in books, movies and games, so there are a lot of easy parallels that we can draw on.” “Magicka had a lot of those references,” said the CEO, ” and of course [Helldivers 2] does too, with Starship Troopers being the most obvious.
In fact, the popularity of Helldivers has sparked something of a Starship Troopers renaissance, with discussion of the film moving quickly and freely on social media. Pilestedt even briefly chatted with Van Dien on Twitter last month, with the actor (jokingly) suggesting the tantalizing idea of a “crossover film.”
I can't wait to play. Maybe we should do a crossover movie?!February 22, 2024
It's no wonder that the film Arrowhead remained a labor of love throughout development. “We as a studio always have the desire and love to empower the player to slip into these significant moments in pop culture.” Crucially, though, Arrowhead wants to let you “experience that without the narrative framework.” Tough luck soldier, Helldivers doesn't want you to survive like Johnny Rico and Carmen Ibanez, but instead you fight from the perspective of that poor idiot who was spectacularly decapitated when they did Beetles have attacked Outpost Whiskey.
Logically, it's not necessarily the clips from Helldivers' Success This makes Arrowhead feel like it did what it set out to do. “There was this one clip where this guy shoots a brood commander,” enthused Pilestedt, “and he just didn’t want to die. And finally he pulls out this pistol that he has lying down.” [his] back, and it just dies on top of him.” It's this kind of desperate, doomed fight for survival that gives the developers a warm glow: “It's like this is a movie,” Pilestedt said, “[a] “Beautiful film.”
