Helldivers 2 Developer Increases Concurrent Players Cap to 450,000 Due to Overcrowded Servers

Developer Arrowhead Game Studios couldn’t have expected that Helldivers 2 would instantly explode in popularity the way it has, which means the co-op shooter is being played far more widely and consistently than the developer had prepared for. Since the game’s launch, that has resulted in quite a few in-game issues for players on both PS5 and PC, with the overcrowding of the servers causing everything from progression-related bugs to connectivity issues and more.

Arrowhead has, of course, continued to work on addressing these issues, with its most recent step being to once again increase the capacity of the game’s servers. In a message shared on the official Helldivers server, the studio revealed that it has now increased the capacity of the servers to 450,000 concurrent players across both platforms- but be warned that you may still run into issues related to progression and connectivity.

“Earlier tonight we had server related issues with a concurrent player spike,” wrote Misty Hart, player support agent at Arrowhead (via Reddit). “This led to some mission payouts failing, some players being kicked to their ships, or being logged out. Our team is working around the clock to solve these issues. While we’ve been able to mitigate some of the causes, we are still struggling to keep up with the scaling that is needed to accommodate all our Helldivers.

“Therefore, we’ve had to cap our concurrent players to around 450,000 to further improve server stability. We will continue to work with our partners to get the ceiling raised. If you have progression related issues, please restart the game in order for things to sync back up. Thank you for your continued patience.”

This isn’t the first time that Arrowhead has had to increase server capacity to tackle the very same issues. Last week, the developer revealed that it had increased the concurrent player count cap to 360,000 across both platforms, only for the cap to be met (and passed) within minutes. As much of a nuisance as it may be to some though, having to deal with unexpected widespread success is certainly a good problem to have.

Over the weekend, Helldivers 2 hit a peak of over 333,000 players on Steam alone, surpassing the all-time concurrent player peaks of megatons like Destiny 2 and Starfield, having previously overtaken Halo Infinite as well. It is by far Sony’s biggest game on Steam to date, eclipsing the likes of God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man.

In our review of the game, we awarded it a score of 8/10, saying, “Helldivers 2 is essentially the first game, except bigger, louder and more epic in scale. Despite issues with matchmaking and some desperately needed quality-of-life, it’s enjoyably engaging.” Read the full review through here.