Helldivers 2 player cap raised to 700,000

Ahead of what will probably be another busy weekend, Helldivers 2 has had its player cap raised from 450,000 to 700,000.

Game director Johan Pilestedt sent out a Tweet with the good news: “I have one final update for tonight. We have updated the max CCU cap to 700,000.”

Friends of @helldivers2,

I have one final update for tonight. We have updated the max CCU cap to 700,000. Unfortunately, we expect the CCU to reach that level. We believe that the wait times will be much more bearable.

Tomorrow we are doing some final improvements for the…

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 23, 2024

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However, he did temper expectations by saying that he and the team expect the new limit to be hit, which will result in people having to queue to enter the game. Helldivers 2 has typically seen over 400,000 concurrent players every day, and that’s just on PC. We have no idea how many people are logging on to do some Helldiving.

Another update was released yesterday to combat players who had begun leaving the game running while they went AFK. The game will now boot players who have been idle for too long, helping to free up space for people to play.

A few days ago we got word from Pilestedt that solving the game’s peak player problem wasn’t just a case of buying more servers, as the issue was within the game’s code. Now that the player count has been upped, it looks like the team has found some sort of workaround, although the fact that they’ve capped it at a number they still expect to be exceeded suggests there’s still a bottleneck in the code.

Of course, Helldivers 2’s success has been a big story this year, partly because of how many headaches it has caused for both the players and the developers. Despite the issues though, people have still flocked to the defence of Super Earth.

If you fancy reading my thoughts on Helldivers 2, head over to my review where I said, “Mowing down bugs in the name of democracy and dismantling socialist robots is immensely satisfying, as is calling down terrible rains of fire from your personal super destroyer. If a few other Helldivers happen to get caught up in the devastation, well, they knew what they were signing up for. Freedom must be achieved at all costs, and freedom is rarely this fun.”