A satirical sci-fi game about a future war against a horde of alien bugs has proven to be a massive hit.
Helldivers 2, the action-packed sequel to the 2015 military strategy game, is rapidly ascending the rankings of most popular games on Steam, a giant online store for PC games.
With more than 409,000 players on the game at once, Helldivers 2 has now overtaken GTA V on several Steam all-time charts. The game is in sixth place on the 24-hour peak list and current players list — and in 24th in the all-time rankings.
What is the most popular Steam game?
That puts Helldivers 2 ahead of Monster Hunter: World, Starfield, Counter-Strike and Destiny 2, among other blockbusters. The bullet-strewn shooter also shifted one million copies in its first three days and became the top PS5 game in the US.
While its achievements are nothing to be sniffed at, it still has a long way to go to break into the Steam top 10, as you can see in the chart below.
1. PUBG: Battlegrounds, 3,257,248
2. Palworld, 2,101,867
3. Counter-Strike 2, 1,818,773
4. Lost Ark, 1,325,305
5. Dota 2, 1,295,114
6. Cyberpunk 2077, 1,054,388
7. Elden Ring, 953,426
8. New World, 913,634
9. Hogwarts Legacy, 879,308
10. Baldur's Gate 3, 875,343
Helldivers 2 server issues
Helldivers 2’s immense popularity is somewhat of a blessing and a curse. Although Sony and developer Arrowhead Game Studios are surely delighted with its success, they’re also struggling to accommodate the massive influx of players.
At the weekend, the studio temporarily capped the game’s simultaneous players to 450,000. Helldivers 2 has been suffering from match-making and login issues since its launch on PS5 and PC on February 8.
To remedy the situation, Arrowhead released a patch last week. However, player numbers on Steam have more than doubled since then, putting more load on its servers.
The spike resulted in some mission payouts failing, some players being kicked to their ships, or being logged out, Arrowhead said on its Discord — which has also been capped and isn’t accepting new invites. The developer is “working around the clock” to fix the problems.
