The Obligatory Helldivers 2 Isn't As Popular As It Was Headlines Have Started to Emerge 1

There are fewer people playing Helldivers 2 now than there were when the game absolutely exploded to an unprecedented level earlier in the year – but probably still more than anyone initially expected. A slew of headlines about the game’s supposed decline started circling on social media during the slow summer weekend just gone, which pointed out that the title attracted a 24-hour peak of “just” 45,315 gamers on Steam over the last 24 hours. That’s obviously a lot fewer than its all-time high on the platform of 458,709.

Of course, all games experience some kind of decline in popularity in the months immediately following their launch – it’s as normal as night transitioning to day. Arrowhead will obviously want to pull players back in with future content updates, and while it clearly never planned for this kind of success, we know it’s ramped up its roadmap after selling over 12 million copies to date.

Helldivers 2 has obviously faced some setbacks since starting so strongly, most prominently because of the PSN login debacle which caused an unexpected mutiny among irate PC players. Sony eventually reneged its decision to require an account for its network, but not before the game had been review bombed thousands of times and pulled from sale in countries that don’t support the Japanese giant’s service.

We can’t imagine the co-op shooter will ever hit the highs of its launch ever again, but with good post-release support it’s clear that the game will continue to enjoy a long and profitable lifecycle. And at the end of the day, that’s the all-important metric for any live service game.

[source steamdb.info, via forbes.com, eurogamer.net]