Arrowhead Game Studios
Helldivers 2 devs are doing everything they can to accommodate massive amounts of players, but problems persist
In a clear case of “suffering from success”, the Helldivers 2 devs have released a message to players affected by network issues as they try and fix them as best as they humanly can.
Having released only one week before writing, Helldivers 2 has managed to completely blow all expectations out of the water. A huge success both on PlayStation 5 and on Steam (where it managed to surpass Palworld and Counter-Strike 2 on the bestseller list), the game garnered so much attention that server went down and matchmaking issues appeared.
In response, the developers at Arrowhead Game Studios have been working non-stop to have emergency server maintenance and upgrades, but it seems like things will take a while to be fully fixed, and with good reason. CEO of the studio Johan Pilestedt shared a message on Twitter/X aimed at the community in which he thanked players for their patience during server maintenance, even giving some revelations about how their system is supposed to work.
“Thank you for your patience during the server maintenance,” said Pilestedt. “With it, we deployed three ‘rapid fixes’ aimed at improving the situation with rewards often not being handed out properly, login issues, and server capacity.” Without entering into too many details, it turns out that the devs managed to double the maximum capacity of their servers, but even then more fixes are needed to handle the influx of new space marines ready to fight for super democracy.
“As such, the issue with login remains. If for any reason you get the ‘failed to connect to server’ issue it means that the maximum number of login requests for that particular minute is exceeded and/or that the servers are full and will require someone to log out before allowing new players in.”
The human side of game development
The server issues resulted in many players not receiving rewards and losing progression in the game when trying to unlock new items and gear ingame, which is one of the devs main goals right now. And while they will keep working on fixing and alleviating all of these issues, the CEO apologized for the problems but reminded everyone that there is people behind all of this chaos.
“I know the progression issue is frustrating, especially for newer divers that want to unlock sweet gear. For now, please once again accept our sincere apologies for the issues you’re facing and rest assured, we’re doing our utmost to make it right. In order to do so, right now it is crucial that our team gets some sleep and we will be back at this again in a few hours.”
It’s been barely a week since the release of the game and ever since, the team at Arrowhead have been working non-stop to fix all of this. But for now it seems the devs have been sent home to take a break and rest, something that often goes overlooked by players angry at a faceless company name.
Considering how actively involved the team is with the game, what with actual people monitoring live gameplay to help create a more exciting experience for everyone, it’s a good thing to see in a time where the video game industry has resorted to treating workers as disposable resources.