Swedish developer Arrowhead Game Studios (Magicka) has released the third-person shooter game Helldivers 2 on PlayStation 5 and PC, immediately achieving strong results on the latter platform. According to Steam data, Helldivers 2 peaked at 81K concurrent players around five hours ago, surpassing God of War's previous record of 73K for a PlayStation launch.
Not that there were many doubts, mind you. Multiplayer games tend to fare better than single player games on the charts, as evidenced by the fact that all the top five games in the all-time concurrent chart (PUBG: Battlegrounds, Palworld, Counter-Strike 2, Lost Ark, and Dota 2) are multiplayer titles. Moreover, this is a day and date launch, whereas Sony previously released games years after they were first launched on PlayStation consoles.
However, it's not exactly all rosy for Arrowhead right now. User reviews on Steam are mixed, with only a 67% approval rating due to crash issues and other problems. A few reviews also bemoan the presence of the third-party DRM nProtect GameGuard, which is an anti-cheating rootkit used in games like PUBG: Battlegrounds and Undecember. Since Helldivers 2 doesn't have any PvP, some users feel it could have done without such a hardcore anti-cheat system.
Arrowhead is working on the crash issues, by the way. They shared the following message on Twitter:
We've uploaded a patch to Steam that should improve matchmaking for PC. The patch also includes some other crash fixes we've identified.
We know there's more to solve, and we're working our way through it. Nevertheless, we hope this rapid patch goes a long way to making your experience better.
Now go smash some bugs (and bots)!
Are you enjoying Helldivers 2 so far? Let us know in the comments below.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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