There’s current a viral tweet going around about how Helldivers 2 needs to be “studied for decades to come” as an example of a game going from a huge hit to a “desolate wasteland” in six months.
That is…a bit extreme, even as someone who has addressed the game’s falling playercount before. There is no way to classify Helldivers 2 as not being a hit given its blockbuster launch, and even if it maintains a decent playercount now, there are some very clear issues with it being a live game that actual players of the game, not just observers, have very clearly noted.
One problem I’ve brought up before is that Helldivers, unlike other live games with seasons or big expansions, does not seem to have anything in its deck to dramatically boost its playercount for any length of time.
The just-launched Escalation of Freedom was the single biggest update the game has seen to date, adding multiple new enemy types, a new type of planet, different mission objectives and a new difficulty level. And still in the grand scheme of live service updates, that’s not that much, and given both what was added and ensuing controversies, it has failed to perform.
You can see the release of Escalation of Freedom is barely a blip in the game’s lifespan, which is generally not what you’d like to see when releasing a content update that’s your biggest yet. It’s also the fact that the increase was very short lived. Just a week later, the playercount at 41,000 is inching toward the series low of 31,000.
So, a “major” update hasn’t moved the needle much, but the biggest problem is that Arrowhead does not seem to be learning their lessons. This has happened many, many times at this point, where the developer has been too nerf-happy with things players have enjoyed using, and with super strong enemies, they have needed those things. Arrowhead previously indicated they had learned from doing this in the past, but now Escalation of Freedom brought new nerfs to things like the flamethrower and its new difficulty can be a just stupid amount of huge enemies that is not terribly fun.
That has led Arrowhead to post yet another message from its game director about fixing this:
“I want to directly address the feedback you’ve raised about the Escalation of Freedom update. We’ve spent the last week listening to feedback, reflecting about the path ahead for Helldivers 2 and how we want to continue developing the game. In short, we didn’t hit our target with the latest update. Some things we just didn’t get right – and other more fundamental inconsistencies in our approach to game balance and game direction.
All of that is on us and we are going to own that. As many of you have pointed out, and we agree, what matters most now is action. Not talk.”
The “action” here includes things like making player fire damage better and nerfing Chargers, but another thing is “exploring creation” of a beta environment to test these changes before things roll out and everyone is mad. The main refrain from fans is “why do you keep nerfing things this much in a purely PvE game?” and while there can be reasons for that, Arrowhead does seem to be consistently overdoing it. And it does not seem great as this is a game that constantly sells “Warbonds” with new weapons they want you to use over old ones.
I believe Helldivers 2 can have a long life, but I do think it is going to be hard to significantly re-engage former players, and hold on to some current ones if they keep failing to balance the game correctly.
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