Since the launch of Helldivers 2, the game has steadily experienced a rise in concurrent player count. At the time of writing this post, the highest concurrent player count for Helldivers 2 stood at 457,649. However, the rising player count has also come with challenges for Arrowhead Game Studios.
Players have reported long waiting times as they try to log into the game. Perhaps, if the server issue had not existed, the concurrent player count on Steam would have been significantly higher. Nevertheless, the game has already become the most concurrently played game on Steam out of all the PlayStation first-party studio games available on the platform.
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Some players have suggested that Arrowhead should purchase more servers. However, the studio’s CEO Johan Pilestedt said dealing with the issue goes beyond just purchasing more servers. In a recent post on X, Pilestedt revealed that the studio has raised the concurrent user (CCU) cap to 700,000 but warns it may not be enough.
Friends of Helldivers 2, I have one final update for tonight,” Pilestedt wrote on X. “Unfortunately, we expect the CCU to reach that level. We believe that the wait times will be much more bearable. Tomorrow we are doing some final improvements for the weekend.”
Helldivers 2 has been a breakout release for Sony. According to Chris Kerr of Game Developer, the game has sold around 1 million copies since it was launched on February 8. It is not all surprising because it is the first game from Sony’s first-party studio to launch on a platform that was not PlayStation.
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Helldivers 2 was launched simultaneously on PS5 and PC and allowed crossplay between the two platforms. Since the game allows up to 4 player co-ops, players on PS5 and PC can band together to fight for democracy—as it is fondly touted. The sequel to the 2015 release was also revamped to a third-person shooter instead of the top-down approach of the first release.
A new Helldivers 2 update kicks idle players to the title screen
Part of the reason why some players find it hard to gain access to Helldivers 2 is because idle players are hugging the servers. Some players struggle to gain access to the game. When they eventually do, they sit tight and refuse to log out even when they are not playing for fear that they may face challenges with getting back in.
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In addition to clogging the servers, the activities of such players mar the experience of whoever they band with in the game because they don’t contribute efficiently to their teams. The new update will kick idle players back to the title screen, freeing up space for others to use the server. The update published on Thursday, February 22, 2024 targets AFK (away from keyboard) players. AFK players are described as players that stay idle for 15 minutes.
“We have issued a patch for PS5 and PC players to address AFK players, stability and crashes, and continued backend performance improvements,” the studio announced on X on Thursday through the game’s official handle. Other fixes that came with the patch 1.000.11 includes;
- 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.
As the game’s popularity surges, Pilestedt said the company will recruit more developers to “beef up” the studio’s content plan for the game. With the upgrade of the server capacity, it will be interesting to see what the concurrent player number of Helldivers 2 will be by the end of the weekend.
