GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Helldivers 2’s latest update looks like it’s gone down smooth, with player counts not seen since June—from a balance patch, no lessWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Helldivers 2’s latest update looks like it’s gone down smooth, with player counts not seen since June—from a balance patch, no lessWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Arrowhead Games / Sony)
Helldivers 2’slatest patchhas, pretty comprehensively, overhauled the game’s approach to difficulty, weapon balancing, and loadout variety—and it looks like it’s working out pretty well for ol' Arrowhead.
While every major patch brings its own concurrent user jump, I think it’s pretty notable here that this patch,as per SteamDB, has seen 24-hour peak player numbers not spied sinceJune—over 68,000 players, which is a heck of a lot for a Tuesday night. It’s since dipped back down to 25,000, though I’m willing to bet that’s because people need to, y’know, sleep and/or go to work.
(Image credit: SteamDB)
Those are some huge numbers for what is, essentially, a balance update.Escalation of Freedom, which saw new enemy types and objectives added, topped out at a 61,000 bump before the game dwindled to a cosy (but still not dead, no matter what the peanut gallery says) average of around 20,000 to 10,000 players.
At a glance, community response seems to be very positive, too. Thegame’s subreddithas been overtaken with praise—my favourite being this pitch-perfect use of one of my favourite Avatar: The Last Airbender scenes.
“I keep one-shotting Bile Titans with my recoilless rifle and every single time the trailer just plays in the back of my head,” one player writes,adding: “I am at peace.” In aseparate thread, userCivilBreak137 adds: “Most fun I ever had playing helldivers. Everytime I died was because of an issue that I made, and not something stupid like getting one tapped in the head.”
Steam reviews, while they’ve not reached quite the same volume as those piled onto the game afterSony’s PSN meddling, are largely positive, too. Taking a peek at thehelpful-rated user reviewscoming in today, there’s a strong sentiment of ‘we’re so back!’ doing the rounds, with negative reviews spawning from players still frustrated with Arrowhead’s prior treatment, more than anything to do with the patch itself.
It’s genuinely nice to see democracy’s bravest soldiers actually happy for once. Helldivers 2 has had a very bumpy ride, going from serversbuckling under the weightof hundreds of thousands of players tohistoric review bombingand a controversy every other week.
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It’ll take some time to see if Arrowhead falls back on old habits or not but, for the time being, it looks like going for buffs, not nerfs has paid off. All Arrowhead’s got to tie up now is aharder difficulty for the pure masochistsand the long-awaitedreturn of the Illuminateto fully turn this Super Destroyer around.
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