The surprise hit of Helldivers 2 benefited greatly from its release on PC at the same time as on PS5 according to an analyst. Enough to further convince Sony to pamper PC gamers with its next releases.
This is one of many surprise hits this year: Helldiverse 2 has brought together hundreds of thousands of players every day since its release on February 19. No one saw the phenomenon coming for this game published by Sony PlayStation, following a twin stick shooter released in 2015 and rather appreciated by players.
During its release week, the game had more than 450,000 players on Steam, not counting the huge PS5 base. The success had even given the Arrowhead studio a hard time, as effective word of mouth had brought its server infrastructures to their knees.
Several months later, the game saw its number of players gradually decline, but still attracts more than 100,000 players per day on PC. And it seems that its release on Steam is no stranger to its popularity.
The PC played an “important role” in the game’s success
In a short thread published on Twitter (X), analyst Mat Piscatella (formerly of Activision and Warner Bros. Games) discusses the success of Helldiverse II in the United States and in particular the impact that its simultaneous release had on PC and PlayStation.
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According to him, the PC played an “important role” in the success of the game, which is already “ the 7th most profitable game published by Sony in history “. He specifies that without the PC release, he would be in 20th place. Its success on Steam is undeniable in the United States, the game placing itself at the top of the games bringing together the most players on the platform each month since its release.
Obviously, we should not underestimate the impact of the PS5 in this success, which must bring together an equally large player base and which alone would have allowed the game to climb to the top of the ranking, specifies the analyst in a final tweet.
A strategy that pays
Helldiverse II is one of the rare games published by Sony PlayStation to benefit from a simultaneous release on PS5 and PC. This strategy is part of a more global context where the concept of exclusivity becomes entirely relative: first-party PlayStation games are ported less than two years later to PC and Xbox is now releasing its exclusives on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.
For Sony, the PC has gradually become a target of privileged players to on the one hand continue to grow its intellectual properties after their end of life on PS5, but also to promote the know-how of PlayStation Studios beyond console players. This synergy is obviously a new priority for the firm.
Could we see more games released on both platforms in the future? Not so sure. But this strategy seems perfectly suited to multiplayer experiences offering cross-play, so much so that the concept of exclusivity no longer really makes sense. Phil Spencer also wondered upon his release “who benefits” from the unavailability ofHelldiverse 2on Xbox.
