Helldivers 2 problems can’t be fixed by “buying more servers” – WGB

Helldivers 2 continued popularity is nothing short of amazing to witness, managing concurrent player counts of more than 400,000 over the last couple of days. Its rise to power has been so insane that Arrowhead have had to cap the player count at 450,000 to maintain a degree of server stability, meaning people have had to queue up to log in.

Understandably, people are a little annoyed that they can’t actually play the game they paid for. For those of us lucky enough to log in during quieter times, the issue isn’t that bad, but for most people who can only play during peak hours and don’t have a lot of spare time, it’s a significant problem.

The answer seemed so obvious: get more server space. After all, Helldivers 2 has Sony’s money behind it, so while it would surely be expensive, it should be easily doable, right? Wrong.

That’s according to Arrowhead Games CEO  Johan Pilestedt who has been admirably active in keeping players informed and explaining what’s going on.

Responding to people on X who asked why they don’t just get more servers, Johan said this: “It’s not a matter of money or buying more servers. It’s a matter of labour. We need to optimise the backend code. We are hitting some real limits.”

The implication is obvious: Helldivers 2 was never designed with this many people in mind. You could argue that this was poor coding, I suppose, but I don’t have the knowledge to make that claim. I’d be interested to hear from developers how and why the code was done this way, and if there was any reason it shouldn’t have originally been designed with more flexibility in mind.

Sadly, it seems like the issues won’t be getting fixed quickly. But it does mean we can be hopeful of a proper fix and that once it goes live, the worst of Helldivers 2’s problems will sorted, leaving behind a truly brilliant co-op shooter. You can find out my thoughts on the game by reading my review, here.

On a final note, I can’t help but imagine this impressive launch means Arrowhead Studios will be courted by Sony and eventually bought. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it would fit Sony’s usual Modus Operandi – they typically like to work with a company for quite some time before committing to a full purchase.