The mission of the Helldivers is simple: Every planet out there must be made to accept the righteous cause of Managed Democracy—which apparently includes Earth, too. Helldivers 2 has been a runaway success, soaring past the expectations of gamers and developers alike and even managing to crash the game’s servers multiple times since launch. Astonishingly, it’s even managed to beat out sci-fi titans like Starfield and Destiny 2 in terms of all-time player count on Feb. 17; no mean feat, given how relatively obscure the original Helldivers was.
It’s reminiscent of Titanfall 2‘s similar out-from-nowhere success story, albeit on a far larger scale. On the surface, it’s not hard to see why the game has found such ready appeal: galaxy-spanning battles, hordes of enemies to mow down, and more particle effects than you can shake a Liberator assault rifle at, all wrapped up in a veneer of Starship Troopers-style satirical hyperpatriotism, make for a unique and always high-octane experience.
Indeed, Helldivers 2‘s appeal is unprecedented. Per SteamDB, the game has reached a peak of over 333,000 concurrent players just today. That’s a truly staggering number that puts it above the likes of both Starfield (330,000) and Destiny 2 (316,000) and establishes it as the new king of spacefaring sci-fi, at least for the moment. The massively gratifying gameplay loop and ease of progression, as well as the low barrier to entry, ensure that even a relatively smaller studio with fewer games under its belt can go toe to toe with the likes of Bethesda or Bungie.
In addition, this player count considers that Helldivers 2‘s overwhelmed servers aren’t even allowing large amounts of players into the game. It wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility for that already huge number to soar even higher once those servers can support more Helldivers at a time.
Despite their pared-down game design, Arrowhead’s “less is more” approach is evidently paying dividends. In Helldivers, there aren’t hundreds of empty planets to explore and catalog held up by the bones of an ancient engine. Nor are there 30 different kinds of premium currency to grind so you can maybe potentially afford a cooler shader for your Warlock. It just drops you right into the action, hands you a suit of armor that’s still warm from the last guy, and says go get ’em. Maybe Bethesda will take some notes for Starfield‘s upcoming expansion.
