Helldivers 2 crossed over with Killzone 2 earlier this week, but the hit shooter’s first collaboration was struck with complaints over exorbitantly priced microtransactions. As an apology for the high price tags and to continue its streak of goodwill gestures, developer Arrowhead Game Studios is now offering the crossover’s second batch of goodies for free.
To quickly catch you up, Helldivers 2’s first official collaboration is with fellow PlayStation shooter Killzone 2. The first wave of items includes an assault rifle, a helmet, armor, a cape, a player card, and a player title that costs players almost 2,000 Super Credits – just under $20 and double the cost of traditional Warbonds – and is only available for five days.
To grab every cosmetic or equipment in the Helldivers 2 Killzone collaboration, including whatever the second batch includes, would then cost players nearly $40 or almost the price of the full game, which obviously caused a ruckus in the community, prompting Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani to admit that the studio wanted to “find the sweet spot of people loving the content AND the price and buy the bajeesus out of it,” though “this clearly didn’t hit that mark.”
Arrowhead and Killzone stewards Guerrilla Games have now reached a compromise, though. “As this was our first crossover offering, we’ve been listening to the response, and the feedback we’ve received from our community surveys is that crossover content is really high up on your wishlists,” the developer wrote on Discord. “At the same time, some of you are not happy with the prices of the items and we will revisit this. Many of you were also concerned that items wouldn’t be in rotation for long enough, and there was a bit of concern around how these items exist outside of our usual Warbond releases, which are always themed in our own universe.”
The studio’s feeling the festive spirit and is “in the season of holiday cheer,” so it’s giving the second set of Killzone-themed items to all players later today, completely free of charge. “The distribution of those items will begin shortly, in two waves.” Arrowhead is also extending how long the current Killzone items are available from five days to 10 days, and are working on a way to “bring these items back permanently in the future.”
“If we do stuff you like, we are able to sustain the business and make more stuff that you hopefully like,” CCO Johan Pilestedt wrote on social media, “and then that continues until it doesn’t work, at which point the story ends.”
Helldivers 2 has mostly been doing a good job of making “stuff you like” since it touched down earlier this year. The Omens of Tyranny update recently made good on a bunch of community requests, bringing vehicles, melee weapons, cities, and even a third alien-squid faction to the game for the affordable price of $0/£0. But with live service games, how a studio responds to backlash is just as important as the cool new newness, so I don’t think this story will end anytime soon.
