Helldivers 2 player cap leaves jaws on the floor
While there's no escaping Helldivers 2 right now, it's not always been smooth sailing for Arrowhead Game Studios' bug-blasting first-person shooter. The Starship Troopers-inspired game has got Sony off to a flying start as a PlayStation and PC exclusive in 2024, but unfortunately, it's been a victim of its own success.
As a complete overhaul of 2015's top-down Helldivers, the sequel is a bold reinvention that's even giving Call of Duty a run for its money. The problem is that the small team at Arrowhead has struggled to keep up with demand and deliver a large enough server capacity to house all you wannabe Helldivers.
Helldivers player cap takes another leap
On February 24, Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt confirmed that a new player cap increase allows servers to now hold 800,000 bloodthirsty gamers at once. Putting this into context, Pilestedt said this achievement was "crazy" considering it's a "studio of ~100 devs."
After a strong weekend and reports that things ran pretty smoothly, Pilestedt later tweeted, "I'm really happy and proud of the @arrowheadgs team for an amazing Achievement, the servers handled all @helldivers2 players this weekend without problem."
As for what comes next, Pilestedt continued, "Now we have time to focus on improvements to the title and resume our original plan. Many exciting things upcoming!" If that doesn't scream content roadmap, nothing does. There seems to be no cap to the player cap, as the 800,000 increase comes days after a February 23 increase to 700,000.
Arrowhead Game Studios could get some much-needed support
Click to enlargeThankfully, Helldiver reinforcements could be on the way. Arrowhead job listings point to a hiring spree over at the studio, sparking hopes of not just DLCs, but more support across the board. The team has also promised mechs once the servers are stronger, so everything is heading in the right direction.
At the time of writing, Helldivers 2 has a concurrent player peak of 458,709 on SteamDB. That was on February 24, but with a 24-hour peak of 458,046, the shooter is getting close to breaking that record again. Either way, a look at the numbers shows Helldivers 2 is only a game on the up.
