Helldivers becomes Sony’s biggest steam launch

The Arrowhead and Sony game Hellldivers surpasses other record-setting titles such as God of War and Spider-Man on Steam.

The two were eclipsed by the third-person cooperative shooter that now boasts the top spot and 155,000 concurrent users on the PC platform, according to SteamDB.

The bug-blasting game is described as a “squad-based shooter that sees the elite forces of the Helldivers battling to win an intergalactic struggle to rid the galaxy of the rising alien threats.”

Helldiver’s director and Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has been responding to positive messages from the community about the game’s continued success.

He said on X (formerly Twitter):

You think sony will say any public statement on the units sold? Congrats on the success!!

— GamerUP (@GamerUPGaming) February 11, 2024

The future of the title

Arrowhead has said that the game will deploy free updates to users and new enemies to fight, with the always vocal CEO saying on Discord that “we are constantly going to add more stuff to the game! Enemies, objectives, biomes, etc., are always going to be free and expand the experience.”

Pilestedt commented on the pay-to-win elements of games, saying, “You have to earn the right to monetize’—I truly believe that. If people want to support this title, they have an option, but we are never forcing anyone to do so.”

The CEO said of the only pay-to-win element on X in a tongue-in-cheek jibe:

I'm partial but we really applied ourselves to not make it p2w even though items are functionally different. The only item that's p2w is the revolver – which will win you any "cool gun" competition. Only (minor) problem is that it's not that good.