They could have been lying I guess but I listened to a great podcast about the development of Helldivers 2 (I think it was gamemakers notebook) and one thing that was constantly brought up was as they iterated they forced a huge chunk of the team to sit down and play it. That’s how things like diving from a little bit too high ended up with you faceplanting and rag-dolling, tripping when jet packing over a boulder that you get a little too close to, etc. They found that making it comically realistic in some areas led to more unexpected/emergent gameplay that was way more entertaining. Turrets and such not caring if you’re in the line of fire was brought up I believe.

That’s how we wound up with this game where your friends are as much of a liability as your enemies.