Helldivers 2 launched in February to a tremendous response from fans and critics alike. Now, during Sony’s recent quarterly earnings report, the company has confirmed that the game sold one million copies a week, on average, for 12 weeks post-launch. This milestone makes Helldivers 2 one of PlayStation’s fastest selling games ever, a huge achievement for the small team at Arrowhead.
While Helldivers 2 is technically a sequel, the first game was notably different, with an isometric gameplay style. The sequel essentially reboots things, offering a whole new take on gameplay, with a more traditional third-person camera view, making the game more widely appealing to the masses.
Sony did almost fumble things earlier in May, as the company announced plans to enforce PSN account linking. Due to administrative oversight, Sony did not limit sales of Helldivers 2 on PC to countries where PSN is available. If PSN account linking was enforced as planned, then tens of thousands of players in countries outside of PSN’s service range would have been locked out of the game. Fortunately, after seeing the game’s user rating on Steam drop to negative, Sony changed its mind and will no longer be enforcing PSN accounts in Helldivers 2.
While Helldivers 2 is no longer going to require a PSN login, Sony has still gone back and delisted the game in countries where PSN is not available, leading to over 170 countries losing the ability to purchase the game through Steam. Arrowhead has confirmed that it wants the game to be relisted in these countries but so far, it doesn’t look like Sony is going to budge. In fact, since the announcement, Sony has only delisted the game in more countries, so there is no sign of this being reversed anytime soon.
In the long run, it will be interesting to see what impact this mass delisting has on future sales of the game in the months ahead. Helldivers 2 still has a loyal fan base and a dedicated team of devs behind it.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: I haven't played Helldivers 2 for a couple of weeks but I am itching to jump back in. Hopefully the ongoing availability issue for the game on Steam can be resolved.