It's Crystal Clear Why Helldivers 2 Has Lost 90% Of Its Playerbase

"Helldivers 2" blew everyone away when the game debuted in February 2024. Its unique approach to multiplayer combat and emergent storytelling kept fans hooked and grinding away at the game's sprawling Galactic War. Unless you're new to gaming, though, you know how this story goes. After an initial, almost unimaginable, surge of players came into the game, "Helldivers 2" has now lost 90% of its active players, according to SteamDB.

That's pretty typical for any game, and even though "Helldivers 2" is one of the few titles to really make live service feel worthwhile, there was never much hope that it'd buck this particular gaming trend. In fact, this may have been something that the developers at Arrowhead Games have braced themselves for. The developer previously said it was about time to slow down with "Helldivers 2," and that they wanted to start focusing on releasing fewer updates with higher quality content.

A slower stream of content would definitely push "Helldivers 2" into a new phase. Now is the perfect time for Arrowhead to start focusing on sustainability rather than growth. You don't need 500,000 people playing your game every month for it to be successful. 45,000 players is plenty, but the timing of this particular player count drop does put "Helldivers 2" in an awkward position.

When it comes to the player count in "Helldivers 2," there's one big elephant in the room: the PlayStation Network account issue. It wasn't that long ago that Sony tried to force PC players to link their Steam accounts to the PSN, and "Helldivers" fans didn't take kindly to that requirement. The entire community revolted and caused such a stir that Sony ultimately reversed course and apologized for the move. It's possible that some PC players won't return as a result of this, despite Sony dropping the PSN requirement. Gamers are a fickle bunch, and Arrowhead might need to do something extra to entice the larger audience to come back.

Updates are a great way to bring in lapsed players, but it could be a while before "Helldivers 2" gets a sizable content drop. The devs are currently on a kind of summer break, and they won't be working at full force for several weeks. Arrowhead community manager Twinbeard told fans in the official Discord, "Arrowhead won't close during summertime and 'Helldivers 2' won't be abandoned, so you continue breathing, it will be ok." 

He went on to clarify, "It is however fact that Sweden in many ways go into a semi-siesta mode during 'Sweden industry summer break,' which is typically early July to mid August." That means "Helldivers" fans can primarily expect hotfixes and minor patches for a good chunk of the summer while the developers get some much-needed rest.

"Helldivers 2" will most likely never get back to its peak player count. When the Illuminate invasion finally happens, some people might return, and if the game ever really does make it to Xbox, it'll score a ton of new fans. Beyond those two events, though, the comparatively low player count is going to be the new norm for the game. Luckily, fans don't seem all that worried.

Over on the "Helldivers 2" subreddit, some fans are voicing complaints about the game as always, but overwhelmingly people are supportive of Arrowhead's work and discussing the drop in players in non-apocalyptic terms. "Hey just like Rock and Stone, AH will always have its diehard fans no matter the cost. I'm one of them and I'm here until the bitter end," wrote one commenter.

Others pointed out that the timing of the player drop coincides with other big events, gaming-related and otherwise. "I've only stopped to play 'Shadow of the Erdtree,'" wrote one fan, "I'll be back." Another said, "It's also FREAKING SUMMER. A lot of people are enjoying actual grass atm." 

Of course, for those of us who've sworn to only touch grass when we return to Super Earth after a lengthy tour of defending democracy, this news about lagging player counts isn't great, but it could be worse. On the bright side, the people who are still playing are really committed to the game, and they'll probably be better at watching your back in a firefight than whoever is just popping into the game.