How the Swedish Dungeons & Dragons Inspired Helldivers 2

As Arrowhead Studios was putting the finishing touches on its multiplayer sci-fi shooter Helldivers 2, Johan Pilestedt was firming up the game’s online infrastructure.

Pilestedt, then the developer’s chief executive and now its chief creative officer, estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 people would buy Helldivers 2 at launch, based on audiences for similar games in the genre. He decided to make sure the studio’s servers could handle up to 150,000 concurrent players, just in case.

But on Feb. 8, the day Helldivers 2 was released for the PlayStation 5 and the PC, Arrowhead’s servers started crashing early.

A quarter of a million people had tried to log on and play the game, more than double Pilestedt’s projections. The engineers got to work increasing what the servers could handle. Soon they had room for 400,000 players but blew through that almost immediately. They raised it to 500,000. Then 600,000.

Within days, Helldivers 2 had more than a million people playing at once, and by May, it had earned the distinction of the fastest-selling PlayStation game of all time, outpacing God of War Ragnarok with 12 million units sold in 12 weeks. The success was unexpected, even for those who made the game, a team-based shooter with similarities to Left 4 Dead and Destiny.

“I wouldn’t have thought that people would care this much in a million years,” Pilestedt said.

Although Helldivers 2, an intergalactic action-adventure with a setting and satirical tone reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s cult classic “Starship Troopers,” is technically a sequel, players were responding to what makes the game stand apart. Unlike other live service games, which typically introduce predetermined content on a seasonal basis, updates in Helldivers 2 form the backbone of a constantly evolving story that changes and fluctuates, sometimes drastically, depending on how players act.