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Helldivers 2's new Into the Unjust update brought some underground Terminid-hunting action to Arrowhead's co-op shooter, but it's the technical bugs giving many players more trouble. The patch has exacerbated gripes about the game's performance and consistency, and it's intensified player complaints to the point that Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani has already come out waving an olive branch.
Arrowhead only recently, and rightly, argued that most of any game's community exists offline, and you can't just listen to Reddit for feedback. That being said, the folks on Reddit – and Twitter, and Discord, and in Steam reviews – absolutely have a point here.
"Arrowhead, this is unacceptable at this point," writes astrills_no. "Fix your game."
"Arrowhead, this is just not working," echoes Substantial-Ad-5221, highlighting a previous comment from Jorjani, in which he confirmed Arrowhead is "not planning any dedicated only performances update."
Huge swathes of the community look just like this. Lots of people are enjoying the new content, but performance issues are also the talk of the town. Jorjani waded into the discussion on the official Helldivers 2 Discord server, acknowledging some new and ongoing problems.
One user reckoned "You can't keep saying performance is getting addressed and yet again an update makes the performance tank" in one chat channel.
Jorjani replied: "100% get it. Performance is something we've talked about a TON today. It's not good enough. A fix for some of the most immediate things is being prepped."
Another user rather helpfully suggested that the devs "not ship updates that have poor optimization and make the game unplayable," prompting another response from the CEO.
"Yep," Jorjani said. "We've taken a bunch of new corrective steps behind the scenes. But the effects of those won't be seen for a while."
Jorjani specifically addressed "the size problem" that Helldivers 2 is facing on PC, with the latest update pushing the game over the 140 GB mark. It's "also being looked at [right now]," he said of the game's gigabyte gluttony.
Another user asked, "How do AH test the game themselves without it crashing all the time? Do they have quantum computers?"
Jorjani's reply here was maybe his most candid: "Not enough!"
In a quick follow-up, he added, "For some bugs we are aware but testing tells us they are rare. But then a couple million more play the game and it's not so rare anymore." This is often how bugs slip into games, especially live service games, and it's also partly why so many online games break at launch.
This is notably not the first time that Jorjani has offered assurances for upcoming improvements to Helldivers 2 performance and stability, and there is unavoidable time lag between development goals and deliverables, but the game's community really does seem to be souring on the subject. Here's hoping Helldivers 2's performance can soon be brought up to the standard set by its gameplay.
If you're wondering, and a whole lot of people are, here's how to kill a Helldivers 2 Hive Lord.
