Helldivers 2 server capacity finally increased after weeks of issues

After weeks of difficulties amid its explosive surge in popularity, Helldivers 2 has finally expanded its server capacity to let more Democracy defenders join the fight.

Helldivers 2 players rejoice. Server capacity has finally been expanded a full fortnight after the game’s release, allowing more players online than ever before.

The Arrowhead CEO himself confirmed the welcome news on February 22, outlining how after days of struggles, devs have “increased the server [capacity]” for Helldivers 2. “Everyone should be able to get past the login screen now,” he assured.

However, despite appearing on the right track, and seemingly upping the cap from the previous 450,000 concurrent player allowance, Pilestedt confirmed a new, higher cap is still in place. 

“Just to be clear – I mean for now. If everyone logs in we will still hit the cap!” So while server capacity has expanded, with the game’s staggering player count still rising, you may still encounter issues if everyone hops on at the same time.

“We will hit the cap again at some point,” the studio CEO soon followed up, confident the game will clear its previous peak. “We don’t know if we can support everyone this weekend. We are carefully increasing the cap to not have a meltdown.”

It’s safe to say no one expected the overnight success Helldivers 2 turned out to be. Not even its developers nor those at Sony. The first game’s player count peaked with fewer than 10,000 concurrents checking out the 2015 release. In a matter of days, the sequel flew to more than 40x that mark.

Peaking just over 450,000 concurrent players on PC alone, likely with a few hundred thousand more on PlayStation to boot, Helldivers 2 has become a smash hit eclipsing plenty of industry juggernauts on its ascent.

As a result of its mega-viral popularity, servers were simply not prepared for the influx of players. Too many were jumping in at once, forcing devs to cap the number of concurrents at 450,000. 

To workaround the temporary band-aid solution, players resorted to leaving their games idle, remaining in space AFK overnight in order to keep their spot on the server. Naturally, devs clamped down on this tactic in a February 22 update. And now, with increased server capacity, it should no longer be a problem.

It remains to be seen what the new server cap might be, or whether Helldivers will unite to ascend beyond the 450,000 concurrent peak. Rest assured, we’ll keep you updated with all the latest.