Yee-naw: Helldivers 2’s director seems to be riding with Arrowhead’s controversial anti-cowboy hat stance, boldly declaring “people don’t wear hats on helmets”

As you might be aware (we’ve banged on about it a bit already this week) Helldivers 2 got a cowboy-themed Warbond dubbed Borderline Justice yesterday. It has no cowboy hat, because Arrowhead doesn’t reckon that such headgear fits within the Helldiver uniform restrictions.

A lot of players don’t agree with that assessement – some of them have even stormed out of the official gear saloon to pick up a mod that’ll let them team the new armours with a ten-gallon hat. Now, currently on sabbatical Helldivers 2 director and chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt has offered his own view on the situation via a twitter thread sent while he’s at GDC saying things during panels.

Having asked players for their thoughts on the Borderline Justice gear, the dev was naturally quickly asked by multiple people where the Warbond’s cowboy hat is, or whether the game will be getting one at some point down the line.

“I don’t know – haven’t heard the design convo. But I think it crossed the line of what the Helldivers are. Which I agree with,” he wrote in one reply, “I will ask the team next time I pop by the office.” Another player got a slightly different response from Pilestedt: “I agree that it would be awesome, but I think it would break the fantasy of Helldivers…people don’t wear hats on helmets.”

A number of players have been a bit exasperated by that last bit, and have been trying to remind the dev that the beret from the PH-9 Predators armour in last year’s Viper Commandos Warbond is also a hat on top of a helmet, and got past those strict uniform regs. I suppose it depends on your definition of suitably military-ish hats. Do cowboys go to war, and is a cavalry hat a different thing?

Regardless, one thing Pilestedt did suggest might be coming in the fiuture duuring that thread sounds pretty cool. “[A] perk that allows people to take sidearms as primary AND wield them akimbo…”, he wrote, “Unfortunately a bit too much work to make the animations, but maybe sometime in the future?”

Do you waltz around rocking a hat on your helmet in real life? Which helmet are you referring in your answer? Let us know below!