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With Arrowhead Game Studios and Helldivers 2 falling from grace in recent months, many players have been looking for an alternative to play instead. So far, there have been very few games that match Helldivers 2 in terms of gameplay and theme, some players believe that they may have found it in Space Marine 2.
Steamdb recorded the lowest concurrent player count ever seen for Helldivers 2 at just 6.249 on September 9th. Previously, we have seen the game dip down to the 7,000s but this marks the first time that it has reached the 6000s. It will be very interesting to see how much of an impact Space Marine 2 has on the player count, if any.
Following four days of early access for players that purchased either the Gold or Ultra Edition, Space Marine 2 has now officially released for all players and is currently topping the sales chart on Steam. During its early access period, Space Marine 2 peaked at 134,302 concurrent players, however, this didn’t seem to impact Helldivers 2, which peaked at 22,743 concurrent players during the same period.
Ahead of the launch of Space Marine 2, many people compared it to Helldivers 2, with some claiming that it would “kill Helldivers 2” and become the go-to title for those who want to play a PVE horde shooter. But, while watching gameplay over the weekend, and keeping up with community opinions, I couldn’t see too many similarities that would make me think that a player would choose it over Helldivers 2. Although I haven’t had an opportunity to play the game myself, I did spend time on platforms such as Twitch watching gameplay and getting a feeling for the style of game and whether it is one that I would put enough hours into.
While it felt like there would be some overlap in the audience, it doesn’t seem to be too similar to Helldivers 2 that it would fill the void for those who have abandoned the game following Arrowhead’s numerous poor decisions in recent months. With Space Marine 2 now being fully available, I will be keeping an eye on both games to see how each perform and whether there is a clear correlation between player counts. So far though, it hasn’t appeared to have an impact as Space Marine 2 dropped to its lower count too at the same time Helldivers 2 did. But, this week will be the most interesting as all players will be diving in.
If you are sticking with Helldivers 2, the latest Major Order is live with just under three days to go. Players have been tasked with defending and liberating Automaton’s plans to gather resources, which many hope will lead to the Orbital Napalm Barrage Stratagem being released. After failing the Major Order that would have granted the Stratagem as a reward, Arrowhead allowed players to test it out last week and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Because of this, I am confident that players will be putting more effort into ensuring this Major Order is a success.