Despite the rough launch, Helldivers 2 becomes Sony’s biggest Steam release

Sony’s slow and steady move from exclusivity to a multi-platform model continues to pay off. Its most recent release, Helldivers 2, has successfully surpassed God of War to become the publisher’s biggest release on Steam to date, which could drive Sony to bring more of its PS exclusives to PC.

Helldivers 2 launched worldwide on Feb. 8 on PC and PlayStation 5, and has already amassed a sizeable following. According to SteamDB, the game peaked at 83,705 concurrent players on Steam at the time of writing, with about 70 percent positive reviews on the platform. In contrast, God of War reached 73,529 concurrent players at its peak in 2022, though the game had lost some steam (pun intended) after being out for years before arriving on the PC market.

Having surpassed God of War, Helldivers 2 has become Sony’s biggest Steam release. It’s also the company’s first game to be released simultaneously on PC and the PlayStation, and the numbers could motivate Sony to repeat the decision down the line. Previously, Sony would wait for months or years after release (God of War took four years to reach PC players), but now that whole strategy could change. Hopefully, their next PC migration comes in the form of Bloodborne. One can dream, I guess.

Helldivers 2 has been met with relatively positive reviews on Steam, with 70 percent of 15,000 players recommending the game. The most jarring issue players have with the action shooter appears to be the usual performance shenanigans, such as crashing and stutters, but also the GameGuard anti-cheat which requires root-level access from users to operate—similar to what Riot’s Vanguard anti-cheat does in League of Legends and Valorant.

All in all, the game seems to be doing great, and I certainly hope this pushes Sony toward the PC market more as there are many exclusives still trapped in the limbo known as PlayStation.