Hannan Mundia 
Helldivers 2 has taken the gaming world by storm, with its known player count figures giving way to reportage and estimates regarding its units sold.
Developed by Arrowhead Game Studios, Helldivers 2 was Sony’s first simultaneous PS5 and PC release that has become a massive success, hitting an all-time peak of over 458,709 concurrent players. In a Twitter reply, Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Arrowhead, revealed that the game sold about 3 million copies on February 25, 2024, and the number has increased significantly since then.
Even though Arrowhead hasn’t officially shared how much Helldivers 2 has sold, looking at its statistics and comparing it to other titles in both players and sales provides an idea of just how popular the democracy-chasing game is.
How many units has Helldivers 2 sold?
Helldivers 2 has reportedly sold well over 5 million units, though some estimates veer much higher than that.
Helldivers 2 has seen a steady rise in sales despite being out for over a month. Positive reviews, a strong reception from fans, and the emergence of the game on Twitch have likely been key components in the game having a much longer tail than other major releases. Christopher Dring of GamesIndustry.biz says the game saw an increase of 115% in its second week, then 21% in its third week in the UK.
To put it into perspective, he compared it with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which Sony states cleared over 10 million units sold. According to Dring, Helldivers 2’s sales in its first three weeks were only 28% less than Spider-Man 2’s first three weeks. While these numbers are exclusive to the UK, other sales figures confirm that Helldivers sold millions of units.
SteamDB‘s aggregated sales estimates start at around 4 million units sold on Steam. The exact number of units sold is unknown. Regardless, it’s safe to say that Helldivers 2 has been an incredible commercial success for PlayStation.
Helldivers 2 player count numbers are exceptionally strong
Helldivers 2 hit an all-time peak of 458,709 concurrent players.
While there is no way to check the active player count of games on the PlayStation 5, it’s safe to estimate that it’s a high number as Helldivers 2 players kept getting error messages that the servers were full when its max capacity was 250,000. Developer Arrowhead Game Studios had to increase it.
Compared to the all-time highs of Palworld and PUBG: Battlegrounds, it’s a comparatively small number. PUBG had an all-time peak of 3.2 million players and Palworld hit 2.1 million. However, the game is out-drawing those particular competitors by a considerable margin at time of writing. Depending on the timing, it’s even topping games such as Dota 2, which is often the second-most-played game on Steam behind only Counter-Strike 2.
This is particularly notable as Helldivers 2 boasts a decently large price tag. Though it’s not a full-priced game, Helldivers 2’s Steam player count is topping the peaks of Modern Warfare 3 and Starfield. Only a select few games carried a price tag and hit higher totals than those seen here.
