Arrowhead Game Studio"s Helldivers 2 has taken the gaming industry by storm since its release in February. In just 12 weeks, the co-op shooter has sold 12 million copies on PlayStation 5 and PC. That makes it the fastest-selling PlayStation game ever.
The record was previously held by God of War Ragnarok, which sold over 5 million copies in its first week and 11 million in 10 weeks. However, Helldivers 2 has surpassed these figures to become the fastest-selling PlayStation game of all time.
Helldivers 2 is also one of PlayStation"s first live service games. While server issues hampered the first few weeks, over 458,000 people played simultaneously on Steam alone in the first month.
Another major factor in its success was the simultaneous PC release. According to NPD"s research (via Game Rant), an estimated 60% of all copies sold were on PCs. It seems that this strategy of broader platforms may be what PlayStation will continue in the future. During recent earnings calls, Sony has discussed bringing more first-party games to the PC.
On the other hand, Sony"s plans for Helldivers 2 didn"t go so well last week. It"s been a week since Sony gave in to the many demands of Helldivers 2 players on Steam and decided not to make signing up for a PlayStation Network account a requirement to play the game.
The people who live in the over 170 countries where a PSN account cannot be created have still been banned from purchasing Helldivers 2 via Steam for over a week since that decision was made.
The PlayStation 5, which launched a little more than three years ago, surpassed 50 million units sold worldwide in December 2023. Subsequently, Sony lowered its PS5 sales forecast for the current fiscal year, saying that the console will now sell 21 million units for the year instead of the previously predicted 25 million units.
Source: VGC