What you need to know
- Helldivers 2 has recently been plagued with server capacity issues following its extremely successful launch. These led many to get stuck in a queue to play the game, with some waiting for hours at a time.
- However, thanks to around-the-clock work from developer Arrowhead Game Studios, these problems have largely been resolved.
- Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt celebrated victory over the server issues on Sunday, and noted that the studio can now move “to focus on improvements.”
- Notably, Pilestedt said that “many exciting things are upcoming!” We know armored mechs are on the way, and another recent post from the CEO suggests we might get stealth gear, too.
Shortly after its release on February 8, the new third-person co-op shooter Helldivers 2 rocketed to the top of Steam’s Top Sellers chart and quickly accrued hundreds of thousands of players. Its explosive success then continued in the weeks that followed, with its concurrent player record soaring to a peak of 458,709 on Steam alone (tracked with SteamDB) and the game becoming the 20th most-played game in history on the service. Even now as I write this on a Monday morning, over 200,000 PC gamers are dropping into battle and pumping extra-terrestrials full of lead.
But while Helldivers 2’s popularity has been a tremendous and surprising blessing for developer Arrowhead Game Studios, it also led to some severe server capacity problems that plagued the game for the last week and a half or so. As a result, many aspiring Helldivers frequently got stuck in a long queue to play, with the situation getting particularly rough on the weekend before last.
Thanks to tireless, around-the-clock work on Arrowhead’s part, though — including the addition of a 15-minute AFK kick timer and a big server capacity increase — the game was finally able to weather the storm of players this past weekend, with seemingly little to no issues experienced by the community (anecdotally, I was able to log in and play without a problem). And now that that’s been taken care of, the studio is shifting gears “to focus on improvements.”
“I’m really happy and proud of the @arrowheadgs team for an amazing Achievement, the servers handled all @helldivers2 players this weekend without problem,” wrote Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt on Sunday morning, celebrating what was undoubtedly the smoothest Helldivers 2 weekend since launch. “Now we have time to focus on improvements to the title and resume our original plan. Many exciting things upcoming!”
But just what is upcoming for Helldivers 2, anyway? Well, Arrowhead has confirmed in the official Helldivers 2 Discord server that we’ll be getting a roadmap that goes over everything in the near future, but right now, we know for sure that we’ll be getting gigantic armored mechs “soon after launch.” We actually got our first look at these at the end of the “Report for Duty” trailer, which shows a Helldiver climbing into one and then using it to chase a group of Terminid bugs while cackling maniacally. These were a big part of the original 2015 game, and will no doubt have a big impact on the Helldivers 2 sandbox as well.
We may also get stealth gear at some point, too. In another post from Pilestedt, he said he “used to rock subsonic ammo and suppressor” and used covert tactics “during play tests,” which made pretty much everyone go “wait, what?” since there’s no equipment like this available currently. Trying to be sneaky is already encouraged at higher difficulties where there are more and deadlier enemies, and the addition of stealth attachments and ammo types would facilitate more building around that playstyle.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually got an extra faction or two to fight. Right now, there’s the Terminid bugs and the Automaton robots, but Arrowhead could always bring back The Illuminate — a race of technologically advanced aliens — from the first Helldivers, as well. Perhaps new threats will emerge in the sectors to the north and south of Super Earth, as these are currently unoccupied.
We’ll surely learn more about what the developers have planned soon. In the meantime, I’ll be fighting to spread managed democracy across the galaxy, and you should, too. Helldivers 2 is an amazing game (we gave it a glowing 4.5/5 star review), and it’s some of the most co-op fun I’ve had in a very long time.
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.
