Helldivers 2, PlayStation's Fastest-Selling Game Ever, Has Lost 90% Of Its PC Players

Helldivers 2 was a surprise smash hit when it launched earlier this year, contributing to the record of concurrent players seen on Steam back in March. However, these days the game’s PC audience has significantly diminished with the number of concurrent players sitting at 45,315, which is a mere 10% of its peak (and that's rounding up). While not dead, it’s not great for a live service game to see such a precipitous 90% drop in such a relatively short period of time.

The game’s developer, Arrowhead, has seemingly struggled to find the path forward for Helldivers 2. Players often complain about the game’s difficulty but, the fixes applied by Arrowhead seemingly manage to annoy a significant portion of the community. It looks as if the company isn’t the best equipped to manage a live service game that got as big as it did as quickly as it did.


Sony’s decision to enforce a policy requiring players to sign in using a PlayStation Network (PSN) ID months after the game’s launch didn’t help matters, either. This roiled the PC player base, causing many to request, and receive, refunds from Steam. It also led to the game no longer being available in over 177 countries. Sony eventually backed off from its PSN ID requirement, but curiously all of the delistings remain, and it appears that the damage from this saga was significant.

While the situation is less than ideal, there are still options on the table for the game to bring on new players, at least on consoles. The first is to make the game available on Xbox, which will be an easier move now that some Xbox titles have found their way to Sony’s PlayStation 5. Another option is to make the game available as one of the games of the month for PlayStation Plus subscribers, which would most likely boost the player count by quite a bit.