Helldivers 2 loses 59% of returning PS5 players as DLC flops

After a brief revival of players who wanted to earn these Helldivers 2 trophies with the release of the new Escalation of freedom DLC, it seems that the online shooter published by Sony has quickly lost the curiosity of the players for the most part. PS5 player count of Helldivers 2 Escalation of Freedom shows us that even if you have one of the best PS5 multiplayer games on the market, you can't just bombard players with new content – it has to be good content.

Helldivers 2's Escalation of Freedom update gives away nearly 60% of its PS5 player boost

• Helldivers 2 received a free update for PS5 called Escalation of Freedom on Tuesday, August 6, 2024
• The free DLC brought Helldivers 2 a player boost of 31.4% in the last two weeks
• But in the third week Helldivers 2 59% of PS5 player boost lost

Based on a sample of over 3.1 million active PSN accounts (courtesy of our partnership with GameInsightswhich gets most of its PSN data from sources other than TrueTrophies), we were able to track the weekly player count of every major PS5 game.
This includes Helldivers 2with the publication of the free Escalation of freedom Update on Tuesday, August 6, 2024. We recently reported that Helldivers 2’s player count for August 2024 is 31.4% increase as PS5 players flocked to battle the new enemies and the new CR10 difficulty mode.

But after two weeks of slowly increasing in size, Helldivers 2 lost 59.9% of the player base it gained through Escalation of Freedom by the end of week three (week ends Sunday, August 18, 2024). This seems to correlate with a growing backlash from the player base to recent changes in the game – a backlash that led to developer Arrowhead apologizing and promising changes

Away Tuesday, August 20, 2024Helldivers 2 has received a new patch to alleviate some of the player complaints. Fixes were issued to adjust the range of the flamethrower and the recoil of enemy tentacles and missiles, which had led to numerous complaints from players reporting excessive ragdolling in matches.

Whether these changes will be enough to allay the growing anger of the wider Helldivers 2 The player base is unknown, but it's clear that Arrowhead wants to address the declining PS5 player count head-on. We still think it's one of the best PS5 games right now and it's fun to play, but what do you think of all the latest changes? Let us know in the comments below.