While Arrowhead Game Studios has previously discussed a larger Destiny-inspired social hub for Helldivers 2 in the past, the developer has noted that larger player lobbies won’t be happening any time soon. As caught by GamesRadar, studio CEO Shams Jorjani took to the game’s official Discord server to discuss the possibility of large 16-player lobbies.
When asked about the possibility of such a thing happening, Jorjani essentially shut the discussion down by noting that larger lobbies would bring even more performance issues to the game. “My man, we’re trying to fix performance. Not kill it,” he said.
“I can give you 16 player lobbies tomorrow. And 16 FPS. Want it?” asked Jorjani before going on to note that “This was a joke. Plz [sic] don’t quote me.”
Jorjani has spoken in the past about the studio’s desire to get the performance issues plaguing Helldivers 2 under control. Earlier this month, he also noted that he would love it if the co-op shooter became a “forever game” for the studio in the vein of RuneScape.
“Myself and the directors agree we would love this to be a forever game,” Jorjani wrote on the official Discord server. “Assuming we get a grip on the performance and dev practices we can keep expanding it for a long time. PlayStation is super supportive.”
As for a bigger social hub, Jorjani had previously written about it being in the feature list for a potential sequel to Helldivers 2. When asked by a player whether a social hub where several players can hang out between missions is something that the studio might be working on, Jorjani’s response all but confirmed that we won’t be seeing it happen in Helldivers 2 any time soon.
For the sake of context, Helldivers 2 in its current state doesn’t really have a social hub. Each player does have a spaceship, however, where they can hang out with their co-op buddies between various missions. This spaceship also acts as the place where players can swap out gear and buy upgrades. However, it only supports up to 4 players.
It is worth noting that Helldivers 2 has been no stranger to performance issues, especially in more recent months. Back in August, Jorjani had noted that several members of the development team had been on vacation, but had since returned and were “focusing 100% on bug fixing and optimization.”
Earlier this month, Helldivers 2 saw a major update, dubbed Into the Unjust, which introduced an entirely new type of mission and terrain for players to take on. Since the release of the update, players have been able to take on missions that take them deep underground on Terminid Hive Worlds to help the further spread of Managed Democracy.
The update, however, did end up introducing a few bugs and performance issues, some of which were addressed with a hotfix just a couple of days later.
Helldivers 2 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review of the recent Xbox Series X/S version.
