"Notice our body language. It's very open and vulnerable right now."
Deep Rock Galactic and Helldivers 2 have a lot in common. They're horde-shooters about deploying to hostile planets where you shoot bugs—still, a crossover hasn't emerged yet, though that's not a shocker. Not only has the game been out for just over a month, it's also been bombarded with major server issues thanks to its runaway success. It's safe to assume that Arrowhead Games has been very busy, in the same way that the ocean is very wet.
That hasn't stopped the charmingly chaotic scamps over at Deep Rock Galactic developer Ghost Ship Games (who recently mobilised its fanbase into making 'dwarf' an official Steam category) from shooting their shot. As spotted by GamesRadar, the developers streamed Helldivers 2 over the weekend as a gesture of good will to Arrowhead Games.
"We just downloaded this new reskin mod for Deep Rock Galactic," jokes one of the trio, as they stand with their arms outstretched like aliens coming in peace. "We emailed Arrowhead a while back to say 'hey guys, let's put our heads together and do something', but we haven't heard back from them via email. So this is our next shot.
"We couldn't think of any other way to do it than to play their game, live on stream, and say 'Arrowhead, what're you guys doing'? Please answer our emails. Let's talk. Let's put our heads together and see if we can cook something up."
Jacob Herold, the studio's social media manager, chimes in: "Notice our body language. It's very open and vulnerable right now". His comrade in bargaining replies "That's right Jacob," before launching into a questionable anecdote about Herold working as a court psychologist for 30 years, allegedly studying the body language of serial killers.
You might be shocked to find out that Herold's LinkedIn page doesn't mention his three-decade long tenure in Chicago's criminal justice system. But I trust Ghost Ship Games, so he's probably just bashful about his service to the common good.
"If you guys wanna chime in," hints a third dev to the stream's chat, adding "like, throw them a little love letter?" before they're interrupted by Herold who, likely drawing on his 30 years of criminal justice experience, notes: "Nothing crazy though." Aaron (or 'Sweet Keith', as he likes to be called) finishes their plea before immediately launching into an impromptu vote on which diver's outfit "goes hardest".
At the time of writing, neither CEO Johan Pilestedt nor Arrowhead Games' Twitter have publicly responded, though with a new Warbond incoming I've no doubt the studio is still, well, a little busy. It may be a while yet before we see rock and stone join hands with sweet liberty.
