Helldivers 2 Servers Should Be A Little Easier To Join This Weekend [Updated]

Update 23/2/24: Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilstedt deleted a few of his Tweets from earlier today in order to better clarify his comments. We’ve removed the links to those now-deleted Tweets, replaced them with his updated posts, and we hope he finally got some sleep. — David.

Good news, everyone. We’ve finally got some movement on Helldivers 2 servers just in time for the weekend.

The news came from Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt, who wrote via Twitter: “So, we increased the server for Helldivers 2, so everyone should be able to get past the login screen now.”

Pilestedt then quickly followed up with a correction: “Gah… English – server CCU cap,” he added. He then tweeted a couple of more times, trying to explain and clarify what he meant before a kind soul took pity on him, suggesting he delete his thread, collect his thoughts and start again. Pilestedt agreed.

Collect them he did, and shared a final clarifying update:

Pilestedt, like just about everyone else at Arrowhead, is Swedish, and English is not his first language. It’s also been a very long couple of weeks for everyone over there. I think we can forgive him a small comms fumble on Twitter.

So, what’s the takeaway? The short version is that it should be easier to join Helldivers 2 servers this weekend, but we’re not out of the woods yet.

The bullet points: Arrowhead has increased the Helldivers 2 server cap, and the infrastructure is there to handle player traffic at that new cap of 700,000. A cap is, however, still a cap, and it’s expected that the game will max out its player count again. It’s not clear if everyone in the world wanting to play this weekend will be able to get in. However: your chances of getting in are much better than they were last weekend, the wait times when the servers do fill up will be shorter, and that’s not nothing. Arrowhead will monitor the situation over the weekend in case things go badly. Finally, CCU, for those who don’t speak Network Admin, means Concurrently Connected Users.

To explain the server cap situation for anyone who isn’t fully caught up: Recently, Arrowhead made the decision to cap the number of concurrent Helldivers 2 players in an effort to give the players that could connect a better experience. As the team brings extra servers online to meet demand, that cap is apparently being lifted.

This latest news comes following several days of hotfixes for the extraction shooter, which exploded in popularity across the last week. Arrowhead had not been prepared for such a wave of interest in Helldivers 2, and has been sprinting to catch up ever since. One of players’ major complaints is that there just haven’t been enough servers available to accommodate everyone. Frequently, players were getting stuck on the game’s opening screen while a timer counted down to the next server ping. In some instances, they were getting through only to be faced with an endless black screen bug. An update pushed out last night forcibly kicks players who’ve been idle for 15 minutes to keep server slots open.

Because it never saw the game’s viral success coming, the company has had no chance to staff up to help address demand. The small team has been working to solve issues as best they can while unexpectedly shorthanded. Pilestedt himself said just yesterday that the team grappling with Helldivers 2‘s servers was comprised of just four people.

Four people are trying to figure out how to let almost three-quarters of a million players into the game. These people are legends. Put in their situation, I think I would be crying in a cupboard.

Through their good works, may we all get a chance to spread a little Managed Democracy this weekend.