Arrowhead Game Studios

Arrowhead Game Studios is a Swedish video game development company, established in 2008 by a group of Luleå University of Technology students.

Arrowhead Game Studios

Company type	AB
Industry	Video games
Founded	Skellefteå, Sweden 2008
Founders	Johan Pilestedt Emil Englund Malin Hedström Anton Stenmark Robin Cederholm
Headquarters	Stockholm , Sweden
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Johan Pilestedt (President and CCO) Shams Jorjani (CEO)
Number of employees	~140[1] (2025)
Website	ArrowheadGameStudios.com

History

Johan Pilestedt and Emil Englund, studying Luleå University of Technology in Skellefteå, lead the development of their first game, later released as Magicka, which won the Game of the Year award at the Swedish Game Awards 2008.^[2][3][4] In 2011, Magicka was released, published by Paradox Interactive, after a contract with the publisher was signed in 2009.

After the development, the team decided on planning their next games and intended to ban crunch.^[3] The company gradually moved to Stockholm in 2011–2012.^[2] In the following years, Arrowhead developed The Showdown Effect, a 2.5D multiplayer action game inspired by 1980s and 1990s action movies, for which they stuck with Paradox Interactive to publish it in 2013, and Gauntlet, a co-op dungeon action game, which was published by WB Games in 2014.

In 2015, Arrowhead developed Helldivers, which was published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows. A sequel, Helldivers 2, was first teased in 2021 and released in 2024 by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 5 and Windows. On 22 May 2024, Johan Pilestedt announced that he had stepped down as CEO and hired Shams Jorjani, a longtime business associate to succeed him. Pilestedt assumed the role of chief creative officer (CCO) in order to fully involve himself in game development.^[5]

Games

	Title	Genre(s)	Publisher(s)	Platform(s)	Ref
2011	Magicka	Action-adventure	Paradox	Windows
2013	The Showdown Effect	Action		Windows, OS X
2014	Gauntlet	Hack and slash, dungeon crawl	WB Games	Windows, PS4	[6]
2015	Helldivers	Shoot 'em up	Sony Interactive Entertainment	Windows, PS3, PS4, Vita
2024	Helldivers 2	Third-person shooter		Windows, PS5	[7]

Awards

• Magicka won the Game of the Year award at the Swedish Game Awards 2008.^[4]
• Helldivers was nominated for "Action Game of the Year" and won for "Handheld Game of the Year" at the 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards held by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.^[8]
• Helldivers 2 won multiple awards in 2024, including two times “Best Multiplayer Game”, “Best Console Game” and “Best Ongoing Game” and has been nominated for the “Ultimate Game of the Year” at the Golden Joystick Awards, as well as for the “Game of the Year” at the Steam Game Awards.

Further reading

• Hedström, Malin (27 January 2013). "Arrowhead – A semi-brief history". Arrowhead Game Studio. Retrieved 22 November 2015.