What you need to know
- Arrowhead Game Studios' new third-person PvE co-op shooter Helldivers 2 has been tremendously successful since launching on February 8, with over 400,000 players jumping in this past weekend and 330,051 in-game as I write this.
- However, the game's explosive popularity has led to severe server capacity problems in recent days, making it nearly impossible for many to play it.
- Arrowhead has been working hard to expand Helldivers 2's server capacity, but in the meantime, CEO Johan Pilestedt has suggested holding off on buying the game for now, especially if you're on a tight budget.
- "If you have no cash, get it later. While we made a really fun game it's worth waiting until the servers can support the capacity," he wrote on X (Twitter). A patch to help address the situation is coming later today, with further improvements expected to arrive later this week and beyond.
Arrowhead Game Studios' extremely popular new PvE co-op shooter Helldivers 2 is dominating the gaming conversation right now. Over 400,000 concurrent players dropped into it this past weekend on Steam alone — 330,051 Steam users are on the battlefield right now as I write this on a Tuesday morning, according to SteamDB — and social media has been abuzz with clips, memes, and shining praise for the game ever since it launched about two weeks ago on February 8. Unquestionably, Helldivers 2's performance has been sensational, and it's soaring higher than Arrowhead probably ever imagined it would.
As a result of all that success, though, the game's servers have often been overloaded and at capacity throughout the last several days, making it incredibly difficult for people to actually play. Arrowhead has been toiling 24/7 to expand Helldivers 2's servers since the problem first started happening last Friday, and is readying the boot for players abusing AFK to avoid server queues, but CEO Johan Pilestedt says you may want to hold off on buying the game until the situation improves.
"If you have no cash, get it later. While we made a really fun game it's worth waiting until the servers can support the capacity," wrote Pilestedt on X (Twitter), responding to a fan who said they want to pick up the game but can't afford it at the moment. "I mean, as a CEO I of course want the game to be as profitable as possible, but if you spent [your] last $ and got stuck in server queues I'd be 💔."
I've put nearly 90 hours into Helldivers 2 since its release, and love the game to pieces — but even so, I fully agree with Pilestedt's recommendation to wait for the time being, especially if you're on a tight budget. The Starship Troopers-inspired shooter isn't going anywhere, after all, and there's no reason to rush to buy the game if there's a good chance you'll just end up staring at a server queue for hours. Pick it up after the capacity problems are resolved, and after bugs and issues they've caused like the infamous black screen glitch subside.
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Some good news is that a patch for Helldivers 2 is coming later today (EDIT: The patch is here, and it's a good one) that will help address "login, matchmaking, and server load" issues, and additional improvements are slated to come in the near future, too. We won't truly see how resilient these reinforced servers are until gaming primetime this weekend, of course, but you may not have to wait long if you're holding off on Helldiver enlistment until things settle down.
Once things do settle down, I strongly recommend getting Helldivers 2 as soon as you can. It's one of the best co-op games I've ever played, with exhilarating, heart-pounding gameplay that combines grounded, yet fast-paced and high-intensity shooter combat with top-tier graphics, cinematic visual effects, and killer sound design. The soundtrack is a banger, too, and it also helps that the game has very inoffensive monetization (you can earn lots of its microtransaction currency in-game, and the best weapons come from the free Battle Pass).
Ultimately, I'm just excited to get past all this server capacity mumbo-jumbo so everyone can start looking forward to Helldivers 2's future. It may be a feature-complete experience as is, but its launch period is only the start of what will hopefully be a long and prosperous live-service run. Just last week, Arrowhead signaled its intent to begin a hiring spree, with the studio aiming to "accelerate and beef up" plans for content updates.
Helldivers 2 is available now for $39.99 on both PS5 and PC, and so far, it's one of the best PC games of the year. Notably, the game also supports cross-platform play between PS5 and PC.
