Yesterday, we had reported that Helldivers 2 was suffering from success, with Arrowhead Game Studios forced to place a 450,000 player capacity. Today, we have a fuller picture of the situation.
Helldivers 2 is the talk of the town, with many new buyers eager to jump in and play. In that sense, Arrowhead should consider it a success, but in a roundabout way, it was also Arrowhead’s worst week. As reported by PC Gamer, Helldivers 2’s servers were completely throttled, to the point that most players had to get used to long queues.
Furthermore, matchmaking was broken, with most players choosing to play with friends to get in. And that recreated the cycle further, as players convincing their friends to buy the game and play made Arrowhead more money, and also gave them more players to worry about placating.
Arrowhead offered a bonus XP so that players would feel rewarded for waiting out the queues, but of course, not everyone got to enjoy that reward. And now, we know why.
As it turns out, Arrowhead did not think to add in an AFK remover bot to clear up the queues. Some players took advantage by staying logged in even when they weren’t playing. Again, PC Gamer reported many Helldivers 2 admitting to this blue collar crime, but it is understandable that they would want to stick around so that they could keep on playing.
Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has confirmed on Twitter that they are working on making an AFK remover bot so that everyone who wants to play the game can get a fair go at it. But of course, ultimately, Helldivers 2’s servers need to be expanded to take in the larger pool of gamers that are now the player base for the game.
Every problem that Helldivers 2 has run into is because the game was not scaled up to meet the demand that it now faces. To be fair, Arrowhead entered in an unusual situation here; if Sony had a new The Last of Us or God of War lined up to release, for example, they wouldn’t be facing this much attention.
This is not denying that the game is good, or that it does not deserve this success. Rather, it is to recognize that this is the sole PlayStation first party game that its fans can look forward to for some time. That has helped raise its visibility that the first Helldivers definitely did not have, as it has become part of the console fanboy narrative.
Now, it may seem ironic that Helldivers 2 is more visibly successful on Steam than on PlayStation 5, but this is how the industry is going these days. PlayStation and Xbox gamers alike are buying their favorite Xbox and PlayStation games on Steam, and in huge numbers.
In any case, we have yet to see how long it will take before Arrowhead catches up to the demand for Helldivers 2. We should all cheer for them, of course, because the sooner they figure it out, the sooner everyone gets to play.
