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The first thing I did when I sat down at my computer this morning was boot up Helldivers 2. I’m logged into the video game before 9AM not because I was going to play it right then, but because squatting my spot early in the day guarantees I’ll be able to play later this evening, when it’s nearly impossible to log in.
If you don’t follow video games, Helldivers 2 is a Starship Troopers-inspired third-person shooter from Swedish developer Arrowhead Game Studios. In it, you and up to three other players orbital drop on to any number of faraway planets where you have limited time to complete a series of objectives that always require shooting the shit out of some alien bugs or T-800ish robots. It’s an extremely fun, simple concept that’s become a surprise hit.
No one is more surprised, it seems, than Arrowhead, which has struggled to keep the game running under an unexpectedly huge player base right after launch on February 8. On Steam alone, Helldivers 2 is regularly seeing more than 400,000 concurrent players, which isn’t counting its PlayStation 5 players. Part of the fun in Helldivers 2 is that the entire player base is contributing to the same war effort, defending the galaxy from automatons and bugs that are inching closer to Super Earth. All players can see how their efforts are ever so slightly shifting the battle lines on a galactic map, jump into other players’ games to help them in battle, and earn medals and requisition points that allow them to acquire better weapons and airstrikes. Some of these features appeared to completely break last week under the server load, not allowing players to matchmake or earn or spend their requisition points and medals.