In January 2018, Autodesk stopped supporting the Autodesk Stingray engine, formerly known as Bitsquid. However, the instrument continues to live. Developer Andy Touch noticed that it was used by the authors of the popular shooter Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2
Arrowhead Studio has been working with Autodesk Stingray for many years. Using this engine, she created the first part of Helldivers, and before it, the games The Showdown Effect and Gauntlet. Therefore, the decision to make Helldivers 2 on a familiar engine could be natural for the studio.
It is possible that the development of Helldivers 2 began before Autodesk abandoned the engine. As a result, it was easier for the studio to modify the Autodesk Stingray to suit its needs than to switch to a new technology.
Whether the problems of Helldivers 2 are related to the use of an outdated engine is difficult to say for sure. The game is currently suffering from high server load, unstable connection, matchmaking failures and other problems. Recently, the CEO of Arrowhead studio Johan Pilestedt even advised gamers not to rush with the purchase.
"If you don't have the money, buy the game later. We've made a very interesting game, but it's worth waiting until the servers start to cope with the number of people who want to play. As CEO, of course, I want to make the game as profitable as possible, but if you spend the last money and get stuck in queues on the server, it will be very sad," Pilestedt wrote in X. He did this in response to a tweet from a user who complained that he did not have enough money to buy Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 updates the record for the peak online on Steam daily. She set the last record on the morning of February 21st. According to SteamDB, there were 457,649 people in the game at the same time.
A lot of games were created on the Autodesk Stingray engine at the time. For example, it was used in the development of Escape Dead Island, Hamilton's Great Adventure, Warhammer: End Times — Vermintide and Warhammer: Vermintide 2.