Helldivers 2 is one of 2024’s biggest hits. Thanks to director and CEO Johan Pilestedt, we now have at least an estimate of how successful the game actually is.
Contrary to everyone’s expectations, and this even includes the developers of the game, Helldivers 2 exploded and became one of the biggest titles of the year. The game continues to over-perform, reaching a new peak on Steam with 458,709 concurrent players spreading democracy on February 24. While we don’t have PlayStation player numbers, it has been suggested that they are not far below what we can see on PC.
It still hasn’t been officially confirmed how many copies of Helldivers 2 have been sold so far. What we do know, is that it must be quite a lot. Christopher Dring of GamesIndustry.biz reported on the game’s UK physical sales, showing how the success story has grown since release.
According to new release charts, Helldivers 2 sales rose by 40% from the first week to the second week and around 20% for the third week, which Dring calls “very rare”.
In the UK physical charts, Helldivers 2 is now up to No.4 with sales up 20% in its third week. That's 2 consecutive weeks of rises (which is very rare). Mario vs Donkey Kong down to No.3 with a (more ordinary) 62% sales drop. Skull and Bones down to No.16 (-68% w-o-w)
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) February 25, 2024
Helldivers 2 Is A Massive Commercial Hit
This sales data only concerns physical editions in one market, but it is still a strong indicator on how extraordinarily well this game is performing commercially.
Johan Pilestedt, director of Helldivers 2 and CEO of developer Arrowhead Studios, has previously made allusions towards the amount of sold copies and has once again answered questions about this topic.
On Twitter/X, one user suggested that Helldivers 2 must have sold “almost 3 million copies” so far. Pilestedt replied to this with a finger showing up and eyes wide open.
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 25, 2024
This is of course a pretty coy response, but it suggests that even this estimate misses the mark. Helldivers 2 probably sold even more than that, further cementing it’s status as a massive hit.
It will be interesting to see official numbers and to see if the success story of this game continues to grow. Either way, Helldivers 2 is already one of 2024’s biggest Cinderella story and it looks like the game is here to stay.