Arrowhead Game Studios
Arrowhead Game Studios AB is a Swedish video game development company, established in 2008 by students at Luleå University of Technology.
History
While studying at Luleå, Johan Pilestedt and Emil Englund led the development of Magicka, Arrowhead's first game. It won the Game of the Year award at the 2008 Swedish Game Awards. In 2009, a contract was made with Paradox Interactive, leading to the game's wide release in 2011.After the release of Magicka, Arrowhead planned further games, intent on banning crunch. From 2011 to 2012, the company relocated to Stockholm. In 2013, The Showdown Effect, a 2.5D multiplayer action game inspired by 1980s and 1990s action movies, was published by Paradox, and in Gauntlet, a co-op dungeon crawler, was published by WB Games. In 2015, Helldivers, a top-down shooter, was published by Sony Computer Entertainment; a sequel was released in 2024, also by SIE.
On 22 May 2024, Pilestedt announced that he had become Arrowhead's chief creative officer so that he could fully focus on game development. He was replaced as CEO by Shams Jorjani, a longtime business associate.