Helldivers 2 has been struggling with problems recently. Now the CEO has commented on the state of the game and explained what will happen next.
How does the crisis manifest itself? Helldivers 2’s player count on Steam has fallen from a high of 458,208 in February 2024 to 65,585 in August 2024 – the highest number of logged-in players recently reached on Steam.
That’s a player loss of 86% in 6 months.
If you just look at the average number of players and compare them, the losses are even higher: 91% of the players on Steam have been lost.
What problems are involved? One of the biggest problems with Helldivers 2 is the balancing. Since its release, the game has repeatedly been notable for inconsistent balancing updates.
This often led to anger in the community, who were upset about nerfs of weapons that were being fun.
Helldivers 2’s player numbers have fallen from a peak of 458,208 in February 2024 to a maximum of 65,585 concurrent players on Steam in August 2024.
That’s a player loss of 86% in 6 months.
The criticism has also reached the developers. The CEO of the development studio “Arrowhead”, Shams Jorjani, has now commented on the current state of the game.
Helldivers 2 shows fiery democracy in the new war bond “Flame of Freedom”
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“We try to follow our own North Stars”
What does the boss say? In the official Discord server of Helldivers 2, Jorjani answered some questions from the community.
One player asked if future updates would take inspiration from other co-op games, especially when it comes to balancing. Jorjani replied:
The short answer is that we’re trying to do a better job of following our own North Stars. We got off course a few times during the summer.
In order to get back on track, the company recently promised to fix the game in 60 days. However, this will not all happen at once, but in regular patches. The updates will not be the “biggest ever”, but should still push the game in the “right direction”, as Jorjani explains.
“We must first improve the quality”
Elsewhere, the focus was on the speed at which the war bonds are published. More frequent publications are not currently the focus.
The slower speed was not only to improve quality but also to fix other fundamental problems.
We would like to increase the pace again – but first we need to improve the quality.
Unlike the development team itself, some players tackled certain problems much more quickly. In “only” 10 hours they developed a solution to the weapon balancing problem: Helldivers 2 has problems with the balance of weapons – players work almost 10 hours on a solution: “This would be the right thing to do”