Arrowhead Game Studios has finally implemented an AFK kick function to Helldivers 2.
As we had previously reported, Arrowhead figured out this week that some of their players were staying logged on even after they had finished playing, to ensure that they wouldn’t have to go through the queue the next time they wanted to play. This was an issue they could have anticipated and prepared for, but Arrowhead’s excuse was that they did not expect huge demand to come for their title.
Arrowhead pushed an earlier update that included “prep for increased server load,” and today, we have the AFK kick function.
As reported by PC Gamer, Helldivers 2‘s latest patch includes this line in the patch notes:
“Implemented a functionality that will kick players who remain idle for 15 minutes back to the title screen.”
Arrowhead’s intervention was sorely needed, as the title briefly shifted to a Mixed Rating on Steam User Reviews. As of this writing, it is back to a Mostly Positive rating, from 115,664 to 121,191 reviews.
Now, Arrowhead is going to have to worry about managing their players’ expectations, as they aren’t done with increasing the server capacity to the level that would meet the still high demand. It may take them long enough that people will stop playing the game as they get tired of waiting, or they may manage to pull it off, and make Helldivers 2 the 1st party hit that the PlayStation brand needs right now.
You can read the latest patch notes in full below.
Fixes
- Fixed multiple crashes triggered when joining other players’ ships.
- Fixed crash triggered when exiting ADS.
- Fixed crash triggered when players leave a session while bombardments are active.
- Fixed issue where online missions in Galactic War Map were unselectable.
- Fixed issue with GameGuard and Steam’s “verify integrity” step.
- Fixed issue with GameGuard and the Windows firewall.
- Fixed issue preventing access to Ship Management panel.
- Fixed issue causing players to get stuck in the defrosting or in the ship intro cinematic
- Fixed crash triggered when the process of buying Super Credits fails.
- Fixed crash triggered after consecutive quickplay attempts.
- Implemented a functionality that will kick players who remain idle for 15 minutes back to the title screen.
Continuous improvement on client > backend communications.
🧠 Known Issues
These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.
- No text is present for the Requisitions and Social Menu on the Player HUD
- Crash may occur when trying to Match Make on Galactic War Map
- PS5 players may encounter error code 10003001 on the login screen.
- Login rate limiting when many are logging in at the same time.
- Players can become disconnected during play.
- Rewards and other progress may be delayed or not attributed.
- Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers.
- Pick-up of certain objects in-game may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time.
- Other unknown behaviors may occur.
- Japanese VO is missing from intro cutscene and Ship TV.
- Armor values for light/medium/heavy armor do not currently function as intended.
