Update: Arrowhead Game Studios has offered an update with some even more impressive numbers than just Steam’s alone, saying that concurrent player counts for the game (presumably across both PC and PS5) reached a whopping 360,000 at points, and that’s a direct result of the studio raising player capacity to that number – so even higher counts could have been possible.
Of course, the update comes as servers are being absolutely hammered by that sheer volume, and Arrowhead has clarified saying, “If for any reason you get the ‘Failed to connect to server’ issue it means that the maximum number of login requests for that particular minute is exceeded and/or that the servers are full and will require someone to log out before allowing new players in. As mentioned above, the increased capacity should require less retries to get in.”
Fixes for other issues are still ongoing as well, as per the below message:
A message to the community in regards to our latest server update. @helldivers2 @ArrowheadGS #Helldivers2. pic.twitter.com/lwriSFbBbK
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 11, 2024
Original: Helldivers 2 is off to a flying start on Steam, with the game having managed to top every other PlayStation-published release on the platform to date as far as concurrent player peak goes. Arrowhead’s latest launched last week and has managed to notch up a huge 155,926 player peak over the weekend according to SteamDB, with 134,329 actively playing at the time of writing.
It’s a massive achievement for the sequel, which takes the isometric alien bug-murdering action of 2015’s Helldivers and reimagines it as a high octane third-person shooter with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and plenty of opportunity for multiplayer mayhem and hilarity. The viral success has also helped it overcome some initial launch woes like matchmaking issues and crashes, with the studio actively working to patch it up. Some complaints remain around the use of kernel-level anti cheat measures, but the game’s user reviews on Steam have turned around in the days since to become “Mostly Positive.”
Below are the top 10 concurrent player peaks for PlayStation PC games on Steam (thanks to VGC):
- Helldivers 2 (155,926)
- God of War (73,529)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (66,436)
- Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition (56,557)
- The Last of Us Part I (36,496)
- Days Gone (27,450)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (13,539)
- Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (10,851)
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (8,757)
- Helldivers (6,744)
We’re hard at work on our own review of Helldivers 2 which we’ll have ready to share once we feel we’ve really dug into the game’s overall progression systems and longevity, as well as late-game play and how its microtransactions feed into the whole experience. Early impressions though echo much of what we’re seeing around social media – the simple act of spraying bugs and bots with mates is unparalleled and the crippling shame of accidentally blowing your teammates to smithereens is strangely intoxicating.
Helldivers 2 is out now on PS5 and PC and features cross-play between both platforms. You can pick up the physical version on Amazon here for $59 or grab the game digitally on the PlayStation Store here or on Steam here.
