Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 debuted way back in February 2024 and immediately became a smash hit. The title shot up the sales charts and received a near-unanimous positive reception from gamers. Many have praised the co-op shooter for not only having fun gameplay but also halting the trend of aggressive monetization.
Despite proving to be a commercial success for both Arrowhead and Sony, it seems like Helldivers 2 is struggling to maintain its relevance in the gaming landscape as it’s losing the majority of its player base at quite a rapid rate. This certainly doesn’t paint a promising future for PlayStation’s live service ambitions.
Helldivers 2 is Losing Players and Arrowhead Can’t Do Anything
While Helldivers 2 is an incredible title, it has had a bit of a rocky time keeping its momentum up, especially when it comes to Steam. Even though things seemed to be getting better, it looks like the game is losing a little steam on Steam.
According to SteamDB, Helldivers 2‘s performance on Valve’s service has seen a massive drop since its launch, where it managed to reach an impressive peak of 458,709 players. The game’s player number dropped to just 12,995 players on Tuesday, July 9, just after 2 AM PT.
What’s worse is that this downward spiral for the game has been going on for quite a while now, with Helldivers 2 constantly losing its player base since March 2024. So far, May has proven to be its worst month ever, accounting for a drop of 63.5%.
If these numbers concern you too much about Helldivers 2‘s future, then you have to consider other elements as well. For starters, this is kind of natural as every game eventually stops being the big new hot thing, which Helldivers 2 was at the start of 2024. We’ve seen tons of different games launch since then, so it was bound to lose some players.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that these numbers are only representative of its player base on Steam. The game’s leading platform is still the PlayStation 5, which means there are probably a higher number of players on that platform.
Although we don’t have any proof that they could be around the same or more, the amount of community discussions we witness daily is a clear indication that there are still tons of dedicated players protecting Super Earth.
Helldivers 2’s Slump Can be Blamed to the PSN Linking Controversy
As we’ve said before, May 2024 proved to be the worst month for Helldivers 2, where the shooter player’s count dropped significantly. This coincides with the game’s PlayStation account linking controversy earlier that month when PC gamers blasted Sony and the game itself for unexpectedly bringing a PSN connectivity requirement.
Although Sony took back its unnecessary requirement after the massive backlash, it seems like the entire thing has caused more harm to Helldivers 2 than anyone could’ve ever expected.
It’s not only the PSN linking controversy; over the months, many players have complained about the Arrowhead’s decision to constantly nerf useful weapons, not fix game-breaking bugs and glitches, and not deliver quality updates.
Do you think Arrowhead can still save Helldivers 2? Let us know in the comments.
