Helldivers 2’s Player Count Smashes Even Destiny 2’s Record

Although Arrowhead’s latest third-person shooter has been taken aback by its fair share of launch issues, such as matchmaking and login pangs that although mainly result from too many people trying to play the game at once, the reason Helldivers 2 is headlining this piece also goes for why its performance is not up to par for everyone—too many people are trying to play the game at once. 

And that’s no joke. Helldivers 2, on Steam, has recently crossed the peak concurrent player count of Destiny 2 — an extremely popular live service shooter that has remained a frontrunner in this industry for years on end, At the moment, its top CCU stands at 388,754 players, and if I may remind you, this humongous figure only amounts for the Steam player base of the shooter. 

On the PlayStation side of things, things look pretty wild as well. We don’t have the official numbers, stats, or figures for this platform, primarily due to the fact PlayStation does not out any data like for public viewership, but Arrowhead’s CEO, Johan Pilestedt, has something to add to that notion, calling the response of users on PlayStation 5 “really fricking amazing.” 

Yep + the PS5 numbers as well which puts on… Really fricking amazing numbers… Like, 10x more than live in my hometown are playing the game right now.

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 16, 2024

On a side note, it was recently observed that Helldivers 2 will “never” get a dedicated PvP mode, despite extensive fan interest. Instead, Johan recommends getting into Escape From Tarkov for those who prefer playing against other real players instead. The reason behind this decision is quite reasonable and direct, with Johan saying that the team wants to remove toxic elements from the community by not adding PvP. 

Helldivers 2 came out on February 8, 2024, for the PlayStation 5 and PC. The game almost took 8 years to develop, and has been under development right after the release of the first Helldivers in 2015. That said, if you’re a new player, I recommend learning about the best Strategems in the game to better equip yourself against the next horde of enemies.