Helldivers 2 server issues explained: Sony hit suffers from big server limitations

Hellsdivers 2 server issues have been plaguing players trying to Helldivers 2 is a breakout hit. The Sony-published title is currently capped at 450K concurrent players, and the team faces a significant technical challenge. We explain all below.

Sony and Arrowhead’s games-as-a-service gambit with Helldivers 2 has seemingly paid off. With the title smashing concurrent player count records on PC, overtaking the likes of Destiny 2. But, given the title’s seemingly unexpected success, the game has suffered from significant server issues. This has caused many players to receive a “Server at capacity. Please try again later.” error message when attempting to load the game.

Arrowhead’s CEO, Johan Pilestaedst tweeted that the game was experiencing server issues on February 11, noting that the number of pings to the login server has been increased to 20,000 per minute, with an increase in total concurrent players to 360,000.

A message to the community in regards to our latest server update. @helldivers2 @ArrowheadGS #Helldivers2. pic.twitter.com/lwriSFbBbK

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 11, 2024

This was further increased to allow for up to 450,000 players to play concurrently over the past weekend, as posted on the Helldivers 2 official Discord sever. However, it was simply not enough, with reports from players being unable to log in, and long waiting times before being able to log in.

This is due to the sheer volume of login requests that have to be handled by a presumed login server, which has to communicate with a core database. This would require a user to log out, before another is allowed in. These server issues have also caused progression issues, which has led the studio to dish out increased rewards for affected players.

Arrowhead Game Studios

So, why is Helldivers 2 experiencing these issues, and how come the developers cannot scale quite as quickly as Palworld, which ballooned to millions of concurrent players? The answer lies in how its login requests are handled, and how Helldivers 2 fundamentally functions with its internal database.

Helldivers 2 server issues explained

Helldivers 2’s server issues stem from the title’s entire structure. Players can influence the world around them by completing “major missions”. Additionally, the servers must handle requests from a login server, which allows entry and access to a server which presumably gives access to the game’s core database. This handles loot distribution, player progression, and more while in the game. When players head back to their ship after a mission, you need to ping the server again to distribute loot to every player, send data back to the server’s databases, and more.

Sony

This creates a problem where a database that handles player data is getting continuously pinged. When hundreds of thousands of users are playing at one single time, with more attempting to get in all at once, it creates an issue where servers for logins and the title’s core database can get overloaded. Having a significant number of requests to handle at once is not unlike going through a DDOS attack, but caused by the number of people attempting to access the same servers at the same time.

Vertical vs Horizontal scaling

Due to the way the game is structured, scaling up this presumed core database is a significant technical challenge while players are actively logged in. If Arrowhead scales, it will need to add more capacity and hardware to handle the number of pings going to a centralized database. This is called vertical server scaling. Since Helldivers 2 uses a single central database for coordinating everything, this can be scaled up by adding additional hardware to process the amount of data being sent and received from players. This could increase concurrent player counts.

Another option is to introduce data centers, which would decentralize the database, and allow players to access more than one server. This is named horizontal scaling. However, communication between two or more data centers can be extremely challenging, and getting servers to speak to each other and sync with one another is a gargantuan task. MMO Final Fantasy 14 only managed to figure out players transferring between data centers nine years into its lifespan, and it’s asynchronous, so you don’t need two data centers to sync up to a singular database, but instead transfer data between one to the other.

In short, vertical scaling might be the only way for Helldivers 2 to increase capacity in the short term without splitting the player base or having to deal with multiple databases to manage, which can slow down the entire process if you’re trying to transfer data between more than one at a time.

How can Arrowhead solve Helldivers 2’s capacity issues?

Arrowhead’s server capacity issues could be solved by adding more hardware into the mix, or optimizing the way that login requests work by introducing a queue system, which could help players simply wait to enter the game, based on the number of players quitting, and the size of the queue itself. Many titles employ a queue system, and this could be a method that Arrowhead can use to ease the number of concurrent login requests.

Shoving more hardware at the problem could also assist in helping Helldivers 2’s servers manage with current loads. But, this isn’t a straightforward task, either. The game may require a maintenance period to effectively scale up. Adding more servers into the mix is not the be-all-end-all solution to the way that the game can overcome it’s ballooning player count.

As the game’s popularity continues to increase, the company will have to address these issues with actions sooner rather than later to grow, and therefore not limit the number of players wanting to play concurrently at peak times.