Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Games took the the game’s official Reddit page to put a stop to some rumours that had been circulating about how the studios developers interact with the game.
The rumour was in two parts – first, that when developers from Arrowhead played Helldivers 2, they would feature special “devtags,” a common occurrence in online games where special emblems or cosmetics indicate to other online players that the person with said emblem is a developer who works on the game.
Second, that developers are currently joining battles in the fight for democracy and testing unreleased features in a live game with public players.
Both of these rumours, as Arrowhead clearly puts it, are not true.
“First: At present, we do not have/utilize any devtags or other developer identifiers or markers in the game when we play. Our names look just like yours when we play HD2,” the statement said.
“Second: We do not test the game in a live environment. If someone tells you they’re a developer and they start spawning items or other strange behaviors, that person is using exploits to do it.”
That the first rumour isn’t true is neither here nor there, but the second part is at the very least a little confusing for players, particularly because Arrowhead has previously teased/debuted new or upcoming items/weapons in Helldivers 2 by simply dropping them in a public match.
Those however were instances of items and weapons that were for all intents and purposes, ready to go – they had already been tested intensively by Arrowhead, and the shadow drop was more about publicity, and getting eyes on what’s coming.
It would be a lot different (and probably less fun) if Arrowhead developers were dropping into random matches and unleashing items that could potentially break the game and your fun.
As Arrowhead says at the end of its statement, “Be vigilant, sweet Helldivers. Report dissidents to your Democracy Officer.”
Source – [Reddit]