New Helldivers 2 Content & The Game’s Success Are Actually Causing A Huge Problem

Summary Helldivers 2's success led to server issues due to unexpected player numbers exceeding capacity.

Balancing new content with fixing old bugs is challenging for live-service games like Helldivers 2.

Arrowhead faces the same challenges as other live-service studios in maintaining player interest with updates.

Despite the massive, unexpected success of Helldivers 2, the game's overwhelming popularity and fast-paced content release schedule might be turning into a double-edged sword. A sequel to the less-known Helldivers developed by Arrowhead Games Studios, previously best known for their Magicka series, Helldivers 2 exploded in popularity shortly after its release, taking the industry — and the developers themselves — by surprise. Since then, the game has managed to maintain a large and active playerbase to participate in its ongoing galactic war, but some of the game's bigger issues might be falling by the wayside.

Despite the positives of the game's success, its massive popularity also introduced a number of problems. Most notably, the first few weeks after launch were plagued by server issues, as the sheer number of players far exceeded both Arrowhead's expectations and what Helldivers 2's servers were capable of handling. Luckily, the server issues have since been fixed, and Arrowhead has managed to maintain a fast-paced content schedule, with new weapons, enemy types, and Major Orders being introduced every month since release. Unfortunately, several problems still remain — and the pressures of live-service game development might keep them from being fixed.

Related Helldivers Devs Have A Very Good Reason For Not Releasing Even More Updates Arrowhead Studios, the development team behind the wildly popular Helldivers 2, explains why it can't push even more updates than it already does.

Helldivers 2 Is Suffering From Success

Why Arrowhead Can't Prioritize Old Bugs Over New Content

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Although Helldivers 2 is host to a fair number of persistent bugs and nonfunctional features, progress on fixes has been relatively slow, even as Arrowhead continues to introduce new content - which, in some cases, introduces even more bugs. While it might seem like the best course of action would be to focus fully on fixing Helldivers 2's existing problems, the game needs a continual stream of new content to maintain its current success, even at the expense of overall stability and functionality — and the balance between introducing new content and fixing old issues is difficult to strike.

Several longstanding issues in Helldivers 2 have yet to be fixed — many players still face issues with the game crashing for unknown reasons, weapon balance is controversial, and, most notably, there's a persistent bug where damage-over-time effects, like those caused by the flamethrower or Orbital Gas Strike, only work for the "network host" in a squad.

Comments from Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt on the Helldivers Reddit illustrate the studio's struggles. As Pilestedt puts it, "It's easy to say 'just fix, don't add', but the reality of the competitiveness in this industry is that we have to do both to stay relevant." Though Helldivers 2 is currently one of the top performing live-service games, easily outdoing other recent releases from much bigger developers like Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and Ubisoft's Skull and Bones, a content draught could easily drain the game's player count as other games compete for attention.

Presumably, Helldivers 2 is also still "suffering from success," and the game currently supports a concurrent player count that dwarfs even the most optimistic pre-release expectations. The first Helldivers, for example, peaked at less than 7,000 concurrent players on Steam over its nine-year lifespan, and the studios' more popular games aren't much higher. By comparison, Helldivers 2 has maintained a daily peak of hundreds of thousands of players since launch, and the struggle for Arrowhead to scale the servers and adjust to a massive player count likely accounts for a decent portion of the game's issues.

Related Helldivers 2 Review: "A Refreshingly Fun Power Fantasy" Helldivers 2 is just about the best-case scenario for a live-service game, and its show-stopping gameplay delivers incredibly visceral moments.

Helldivers 2's Live-Service Woes Aren't Unique

Arrowhead Is Facing The Same Problems As Every Other Live-Service Studio

It should be noted, though, that the balance between fixing bugs and adding new content isn't a problem that's unique to Helldivers 2. Almost every live-service game runs into this issue at one point or another, as continual updates accrue tech debt and seemingly minor bugs stack up over time. Long-running games like League of Legends or Warframe continue to introduce new content in spite of longstanding issues because, as much as bugs need fixing, new content is primarily what brings in new or returning players.

Related Every Helldivers 2 Major Order So Far, And What It Means For Future Updates As soldiers take part in the grand campaign for Super Earth, some might wonder if they will take on the Terminids, Automatons, or Illuminates next.

Even live-service games that make attempts to resolve their biggest issues aren't always successful — Destiny 2, for example, in response to the game's growing technical issues and massive install size, implemented the massively unpopular "sunsetting," where older content was removed from the game to make space for new additions. Likewise, Rainbow Six Siege halted all updates for its "Operation Health," which focused on fixing the game's backend and some notable bugs but wasn't able to fix everything.

Despite (or because of) its continued success, Helldivers 2 finds itself in a tough position, with several major or minor issues that need fixing. At the same time, the nature of live-service games necessitates a steady stream of new content, and Arrowhead's relatively small team may be having trouble serving both needs. As Helldivers 2 continues to receive updates, either to add new content or fix old bugs, it's hopeful that Arrowhead will improve at striking a balance between the fixes needed for stability and the content needed for continued success.

Source: Pilestedt/Reddit