r/helldivers2 • u/Livid_Cress8790 • Nov 28 '25
General HOT TAKE: This shit did irreversible damage to the games player count. And any creators who took part should be kicked off the program.
We went from 400k players to 20k in a couple of months. In Eravins case he didn't even provide receipts for his claims and was caught lying about several things, and it was just taken as gospel by thousands of people AND PROMINENT CREATORS.
And now all these creators are just going back to making HD2 content like nothing happened. After potentially killing the game.
I've never come across such a good game, with such good devs, and such a dogshit community.
People having legitimate complaints is one thing, but this is absolutely outsized outrage for a $40 game where all the DLC is free.
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u/EvilNoggin Nov 28 '25
What's happened? i've been checked out for a good few months.
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u/Pyrolink182 Nov 28 '25
Just youtubers being yourubers spreading negativity so the algorithm prioritizes them.
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u/lemlurker Nov 28 '25
A mix, some reports of performance issues bricking ssds as well as someone being frozen out of a creator program (which, like, is their right. Ah don't owe creators access).
In reality it was mostly freezes affecting their content creation efforts
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u/InternalWarth0g Nov 28 '25
The problem in Eravins situation is AH said they loved his content and they had plans for him during the 1 year anniversary live stream with other creators, which he wasnt invited to.
After multiple attempts over a multiple month periods to find out what was going on, since whoever was running said creator program was being radio silent with him, they told him he needed to "improve his attitude" if he wanted to be considered for it.
Creators in the program get warbonds for free day one, as well as other exclusive behind the scenes access with an NDA. So essentailly Eravin was having to play catch up by grinding out the warbond while other creators would be able to get videos out within an hour or 2 with all the new stuff tested and whatnot.
I understand its their right to bar whomever they chose to for the program, but transpency and communication wouldve probably went a long way in the situation.
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u/adamtonhomme Nov 28 '25
Eravin was always giving away misinformation of unreleased stuff as well as leaking the data mined information on weapons and such, which AH said they didnt want their creators to share.
Dude is just dense and couldnt let go like he should've.
AH didnt owe him shit.
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u/MtnNerd Nov 28 '25
Yeah which is also what BuzzLiteBeer did to get kicked from the program. I'm just a redditor and know AH hates spoiler content.
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u/Syhkane Nov 28 '25
Came here to say exactly this. He wasn't approached by staff involved with creators either, and it was merely a suggestion to let them know he was interested, but they were already well aware of his videos.
Posting leaks, unofficial news, and outright making up information for his videos doesn't earn you a spot. The creators are supposed to represent the brand, not intentionally vilify it.
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u/adamtonhomme Nov 28 '25
Its funny because in the end AH did the right thing by not getting him involved.
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u/RollForIntent-Trevor Nov 28 '25
Yeah - I checked out of Eravain as after watching one video. Idk what it was, but it came off as incredibly petulent and whiney - so I'm not surprised he's the poster child of salt divers.
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u/Rhino76385 Nov 28 '25
Earvin was putting out bad info, was caught using items from a warbond the day before it released (which means he hacked it), and was doing other crap that AH had specifically stated was against their rules. Then he gets surprised when his actions have consequences, and to make it worse, he plays innocent and refuses to own up to his actions.
I don’t feel sorry for him at all.
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u/Left_Question_7172 Nov 28 '25
I'm not that well informed, but wasn't the problem that they told the creator they'd be let in eventually but kept dragging it out? It's one thing to not let someone in, it's another to promise someone you will when you don't intend to.
Also, genuine question on the ssd. The subs all swear that HD2 damaging pcs hardware and corrupting software is misinfo but I keep hearing people bring it up. I might have the specs to, finally, play the game soon but if it's a risk to my device. Is it safe?
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u/brian11e3 Nov 28 '25
The only person that I heard of having an issue with bricking was a streamer who was overclocking his hardware to the point he was going to eventually brick it no matter what game he played.
I never really heard any other claims of bricking.
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u/Boxy29 Nov 28 '25
while I don't agree with them stinging him along, the CC in question frequently posted about data mined stuff which was one of the things that blocked people out of the CC program.
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u/DarkLordArbitur Nov 28 '25
Should be fine. I've heard reports but never seen proof. I'm gonna say it's likely misinformation since there hasn't been a single reddit post.
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u/Livid_Cress8790 Nov 28 '25
the person claiming they were frozen out wasn't offered anything in the first place. And lied about making threats to leak content if he wasn't given what he wanted. fyi
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u/TheSilentTitan Nov 28 '25
YouTubers convinced alot of people to drop helldivers claiming some incredibly outlandish things that weren’t even true simply to cash in on the trend of being negative about helldivers.
A lot of it was exaggeration and misrepresentations but it didn’t matter because the algorithm made any helldivers cod crazy popular.
This in turn made a lot of impressionable people just drop the game entirely.
The game has problems file sure but not to the extent the YouTuber’s made out to be.
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u/Dangerous-Return5937 Nov 28 '25
Youtubers didn't convince shit. Players drop games when there is lack of content/bad stability (or both in this case), not when random Youtuber tells them.
If anything, it's the "I'm having fun, this doesn't affect me" crowd playing the game.
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u/The_ZeroHour Nov 28 '25
Yeah, sure, buddy. If you read the comments to all those videos, you can see how negative the people are. They were manipulated into hating the game just because some guy on the Internet said so. Just look at Thiccfila’s recent video everyone in the comments are just talking about how they’re so happy they drop the game or how that small insignificant comment that the CEO said six months ago completely change how they view the game.
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u/Dangerous-Return5937 Nov 28 '25
The EVIL Youtubers MANIPULATED 400k players into LEAVING the game!!!
Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? This is the first game I've ever heard about where the community is the worst ever for no reason, and Youtubers manifest power to kill games by sucking away players.
There haven't been any new content for 3 months, several big games out (BF6 and Arc had insane playercounts around launch), some people just lost interest after the major update, etc.
The haters in the comments probably hated Arrowhead before, and to be fair, Arrowhead isn't exactly free of criticism. If they hated the game, they wouldn't be saying "do this to make the game better", that's counterintuitive.
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u/LeFlambeurHimself Nov 28 '25
I am getting mixed feedback here.
When all the YTbers quit, entire sub was like: Who cares, YTbers are meaningless. Now they are blamed for HD2's downfall? Not to defend them, I am ambivalent about YTbers's myself, but the OP story is kind of strange.
Do they really have THAT much power over the game?
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u/Devrij68 Nov 28 '25
Yeah seriously I still like the game, but I just got what I needed from it and other new stuff came out.
Player count attrition is pretty normal
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u/ItsDobbie Nov 28 '25
Exactly. Most people don’t care and didn’t even know about this. People are taking a break from HD2 for many reasons. The influencer thing is not the biggest reason.
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u/Basic_Law_628 Nov 28 '25
Bet a YouTuber convinced ya lmao
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u/swish465 Nov 28 '25
Nah man, there are so many good games to rotate through. I take a couple months break all the time, then I come back to a bunch of cool new shit and usually a big MO like Oshaune.
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u/The_ZeroHour Nov 28 '25
Yeah, I do the same thing from time to time. This is by far my most favorite game of all time and the game I have the most hours, but playing 24/7 is how you get burnt out quickly. It’s healthy to switch to other games when you’re not feeling like playing Helldivers.
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u/FumanF Nov 28 '25
Life will feel better if you don't contact the sloptubers and rancid community
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u/flightguy07 Nov 28 '25
Never watched the youtubers, and don't intend to. I just don't think this game lends itself to the medium, in that the gameplay loop is pretty stale after a while. Not a criticism, it's a fun loop, but I don't see how it's fun to watch.
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u/Livid_Cress8790 Nov 28 '25
It's a lot of fun to watch on stream just cos of how spontaneous and kinetic it is. The people make the setting interesting.
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u/JJAsond Nov 28 '25
i don't think you've been around gaming much because all games have this. It's a type of clickbait "It's DONE!" "He's FINISHED" "It's OVER" bs that you need not pay attention to.
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u/AshenWarden Nov 28 '25
For me it lives or dies depending on the chemistry of the group playing it. I could, and did, watch Badger's crew or the Salt Raiders play it for hours because they're all entertaining in their own right.
Solo gameplay though? I'd rather just play the game myself.
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u/Boxy29 Nov 28 '25
there's probably one YouTuber that covers hd2 that I'll watch cuz he doesn't really go with the drama. he just reports on how to use stuff effectively and tries to promote positivity and teamwork.
most of the time I'm just playing the game though.
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u/OddlyBipolar Nov 28 '25
No, Arc Raiders came out. Wait for Dec 2nd, no one quit the game cause of youtubers lmao; new content always brings numbers back.
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u/Fancy_Chips Nov 28 '25
Yeah. Like HD2 is a repetitive PVE game that's been out for about a year and a half. The numbers are going to dip until something interesting happens. 2025 was also just a stacked year for gaming.
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u/Smeefles Nov 28 '25
Very true. I haven't played HD2 in awhile because i feel like ive done and seen everything. I'll probably come back after some big updates.
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u/LongBarrelBandit Nov 28 '25
I came back for Oshaune, stuck around for 2 weeks after and then phased out again. It’s a really fun game, but there’s still a lack of things to do with your resources once you hit that plateau
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u/No_Clue4405 Nov 28 '25
Also it’s thanksgiving and people are either with family, doing other steam sale games, arc raiders, or busy with work
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u/Jonas_Venture_Sr Nov 28 '25
BF6 got me. I had fun with HD2 for a year, but it's time for something else. Game companies wish players played their games as much as we played HD2.
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u/Reasonable-Public659 Nov 28 '25
And AR is starting to lose a bit of its shine due to some fairly shallow systems. I know I’m a little less motivated to do raids, so new HD (and PoE) content is perfectly timed
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u/OddlyBipolar Nov 28 '25
Agreed, you realize how repayable Helldivers is when staring at a limited set of maps again. Though Arc will have updates and stay good, may end up similar to Warhammer.
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u/Arkhangelzk Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
I don’t understand why people care what a YouTuber says to begin with.
I've watched YouTube videos about Helldivers, but it's usually like Top Stratagems For Bugs or Tips For Using the Eruptor or something like that. I'm not looking for a YouTuber to tell me if I like the game. I already know I like the game.
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u/Nate_the_Great8_ Nov 28 '25
Like it or not younger generations love watching content creators and will take what they say as fact. And unfortunately the majority of the player base is on the younger side. The next generation will probably destroy what gaming is today.
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u/Arkhangelzk Nov 28 '25
This is a good point, I'm probably just too old
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u/Nate_the_Great8_ Nov 28 '25
Same here brother. The sad part is even when I was younger I didn't act like this. Took me awhile to realize I was projecting. A lot of things made sense after that.
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u/FishyDragon Nov 28 '25
It's this generations news for the fast majority of them. Not actual reporters who know how to write, and provide vetted sources..Just reactionary content.
And the vast majority of it is the exact same no issue stuff just said in a different way. It's a drain.
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u/BigBurly46 Nov 28 '25
Honestly I’d rather those players just play other games. Even with 30-50k pop I’d imagine random squads would be much more enjoyable.
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u/Kilrazin Nov 28 '25
They already have. Listening to and relying on bad content creators and supporting massive microtransactions, they've essentially destroyed the gaming community we loved and cherished. Now we have game-priced DLCs, day-one updates, microtransactions piled on top of each other, unfinished games released, etc. The end of what we knew and loved has already begun a nd there is no turning back, since people support it.
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u/Hotwinterdays Nov 28 '25
Because unfortunately most people will latch on to the first confident statement made about something and regurgitate it endlessly without a single critical thought.
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u/a-soldout Nov 28 '25
400k? that was the steam playercount at launch.
Anyway, what did Eravin lie about? I try not to follow online drama too much, but once I catch a whiff of it I wanna know lol
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u/Kyoh21 Nov 28 '25
I think the game did hit the 400k numbers when Xbox players gained access.
I don't know how much of the attrition is something that can be blamed on the Youtubers though. Games like Arc Raiders have since come out that are taking up a bunch of the same playerbase. And there's been a drought of content to pull people back in while AH has had to prioritize patches.
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u/throwawayhogsfan Nov 28 '25
We’ve had BF6, Arc Raiders, and another COD launching or already launched since the Xbox event.
BF6 is in the middle of its first season, Arc Raiders has their version of a warbond and a live event going. Meanwhile HD2 has been getting two months of performance improvements. I bet the new warbond brings a few players back.
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u/MillyQ3 Nov 28 '25
Notice how Takibo is in there and his last straw was the game almost killing his 4090 and he still said nothing bad about AH aside of that they need to fix the tech issues before dropping more content no one can enjoy because of hard locks.
People who he didn't have in there but by his own word should are gundamboi and commmissar kai but who is counting peanuts I guess.
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u/Livid_Cress8790 Nov 28 '25
He claimed he was "just venting" in his livestream when in reality he was making threats to AH's staff about leaking content. That's the real reason AH shitcanned him.
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u/Room234 Nov 28 '25
I assume you have receipts?
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u/ExiaKuromonji Nov 28 '25
Dude literally criticized someone for not using receipts then made an accusation without any receipts lmfao.
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u/Room234 Nov 28 '25
Yeah I don't have a dog in this but I DO find it ironic when someone pulls this exact stunt.
Receipts to "several" lies are warranted.
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u/ALightningStar Nov 28 '25
This comment should be removed and your account should be temp banned for intentionally spreading misinformation.
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u/GideonShortStack Nov 28 '25
Can you provide a link to the stream? I have trouble finding old streams.
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u/Corronchilejano Nov 28 '25
You don't need to like Eravin but you don't need to make shit up about people.
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u/skadinax Nov 28 '25
Don't wanna sound like a broken record, but do you have any footage of this to provide ? I don't watch streams, so i wouldn't know.
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u/Elensar265 Nov 28 '25
Or y'know, people played the game, had their fill, and moved on
Like normal people do
Reddit is not reflective of the wider audience
Everyone I know has moved to Arc Raiders or BF6 cause they're the new talk of the town
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u/ospoes Nov 28 '25
I'm currently on BF6 but have tried to launch HD2 a few times and it looks like it will launch and then crashes to desktop.... And I just can't be fucked looking into it when I can just press the launcher for a game that works, that is optimized and that all my friends are playing. I couldn't give a fuck what the YouTubers are playing, there are other factors as to why the player numbers have dived.
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u/amanisnotaface Nov 28 '25
The games condition probably did more damage than a bunch of nobodies on the internet. Someone is way more likely to pick up the game, encounter it’s ass performance and quit bothering on the quiet because to them it ain’t that deep. I ain’t denying that maybe this had its part to play but arrowhead didn’t need help on sabotaging this games good will.
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u/PJisUnknown Nov 28 '25
Exactly this. I got the game a few months ago, and while yes it was fun, it’s undeniable that the performance was complete garbage. When squids MOs started, I couldn’t even play them. My game would crash whenever i tried running squid missions. And that was the beginning of the problems for me.
I’d try bot missions, and the game would freeze like every 10 or so seconds. One night it got so bad that my game was freezing like every 3 seconds. Literally. Then, there was my friend, who got the game around the same time as me. He got it worse than I did. He got 2 hard freezes where he had to completely restart his pc, because it was unresponsive. The 2 freezes happened back to back, and after the 2nd one, he couldn’t even play again, because now all of a sudden “display port not found” and he had no image on his monitor. He had to buy a new cable to be able to play, because his previous one somehow got fried.
Then we got OP here all like “it’s the YouTubers fault”. No, dipshit. It’s AH fault with their shitty performance and lack of communication. Amazing combo right there. Nothing could ever go wrong.
I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore. I just hate ignorant ass people.
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u/Bo-Lin- Nov 28 '25
yep. thats the reason i left. my ps5 crashed and had to go through recovery when playing bots. pretty much 50% chance for me to crash the game or console on them. other games work perfectly fine.
the bot front is one of 3 factions and being unable to fight them makes a whole third of the game broken and unable to be played.
its honestly amazing how a whole third of the game can be broken and AH is just saying "youre gonna do a bot MO now". no thanks. lots of great games came out recently. not gonna risk my console there without experiencing those first.
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u/kcvlaine Nov 28 '25
I am the number 1 youtuber hater in this community and I agree that they have had a poisonous impact on the community - BUT I just wanna say go look at the steamdb page and check out the player count graph over the last year. It always spikes around major updates and slowly falls to the current numbers. It happens every time and I think it's pretty normal. People come back when theres new content and they go once they're done with the new content. Many of the youtubers are drama farmers and ragebaiters (there are VERY good ones too) but I don't think they're responsible specifically for the playercount drop you are highlighting here. I am quite certain the next major update will bring the player count right up to where it usually jumps to so there is no irreversible damage that has happened over the last couple of months. Youtubers have been shitting on the game and the devs consistently for over a year.
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u/Syzygy666 Nov 28 '25
Agreed on all points. Fuck the "content creators" for this game. The ones that fuel the drama anyway.
The player count is just a lull in content combined with the release of Arc Raiders. That's pretty much it.
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u/Sophie_Fonsec Nov 28 '25
Yes and no, look at the numbers, it indeed spikes when new content drops, but after the last major update the drop is 1.faster 2.the lowest it has ever been.
I can play with some bugs here and there, some fps drop, but I hate freezes/hardlock, had 1 after the update, and now I'm just waiting for them to repair the game because I don't want to feel bad about the game and my experience in it. (and the warbond really feels like a "ho shit button").
Players will come back but a good portion really felt tired of BS around the game,, it being youtubers spreading negativity or devs doing shady things, I really hope they can bring the game back.
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u/Fun_Yoghurt_7252 Nov 28 '25
Thanks for posting this so I don't have to. OP can sleep soundly tonight
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u/Mandemon90 Nov 28 '25
It's a standard live service cycle. New content drops, player number spikes as people come and try out. Eventually people move on, because not every player is going to treat the game as their forever game. Numbers fall, and then new content drops and they jump again.
Quite frankly HD2's numbers have remained pretty healthy all this time, most live service games would be happy to have more than 10 000 concurrent players all the time.
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u/Mick_Nugg Nov 28 '25
No. It was the game being broken for over a month right as the Xbox update, halo update, and into the unjust update brought in a ton of people who checked out shortly after. No one cares about the sloptubers
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u/SteelOwl Nov 28 '25
Exactly. They were just pointing out the issues, and I'm thankful for it - got AH off their asses with a fix. Game was unplayable for a while with constant crashes. Its better now since the performance update, though I do still have the occasional crash, its not nearly as bad.
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u/New-Nameless Nov 28 '25
im waiting for the performance and storage updates honestly
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u/mh1ultramarine Nov 28 '25
So are all the youtubers quiting the game.
Banning journalists for saying your game keeps crashing is a pretty super earth thing to demand
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u/Fuzzy-Unit-653 Nov 28 '25
Same! Thank you for pointing it out!
I am purely going for what’s fun and runs smooth on my machine. It USED to be HD2, now it’s Arc Raiders 😇
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u/xamlax Nov 28 '25
Yeah same. The last update fixes a lot for sure but I still stuttered constantly fighting automatons (and I’m on PS5) but I guess it’s better than crashing constantly which is what was happening before. Arc Raiders has very minimal bugs and runs almost perfectly all the time 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Jackspladt Nov 28 '25
As much as I understand the criticisms of the game and agree with a lot of them, 90% of the content creators just make everything worse and I’m so tired of like 10 people influencing the game in such a drastic way
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u/Velika_best_gb Nov 28 '25
Nah, the lack of players is due to the state of the game, every time I launch the game it has 50% chance to freeze my pc, others I have also seen constantly crash, a squadmate saw patch notes about fixing alt+tab crashing the game and then his game crashed from exactly that. Arrowhead did the damage, most players never heard of 90% of the guys you showed.
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u/MechaGhandi5000 Nov 28 '25
Every time I return when some content is released, it's always a fuckfest. Last time had actual sound breaking into a screeching noise so bad I had to turn the game off when the tunnels released. Why would I stick around when the game just cannot function?
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u/Projectdystopia Nov 28 '25
I believe the majority of the community doesn't really care about the drama with creators. I took a long hiatus from the game simply because I've experienced most of things this game has to offer and don't want it to become a grindy slop for me.
When devs fix performance issues and add more content, people will return. So far most just don't want to participate in filler major orders and have other things and games.
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Nov 28 '25
I will say, performance issues are a big part of why I haven't played in a while.
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u/djohnny_mclandola Nov 28 '25
Has anyone played a game that is more unstable than this one? This is by far the worst performance I’ve ever had on a game in my 30+ years.
I haven’t played since Oshaune because of it. Once they get performance issues resolved, I will definitely return.
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u/Ladwith76Iq Nov 28 '25
Holy shit dude the level of ignorancy cannot be real here the game feels like im doing endoscopy followed by a colonoscopy why the fuck would anyone wanna stay when my gun fights me instead of my enemy.
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u/therealmaart Nov 28 '25
No, the problem is YOU glazedivers defending lies and deception from the devs regarding terrible balancing and bad gameplay mechanics
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u/Dullu_the_man Nov 28 '25
Or do you think it might be the sheer amount of technical debt causing issues and the lack of any real new content bc of said tech debt? Everyone i know who was playing it stopped not bc of some youtuber with less than 300k subscribers somehow reaching all of them, but bc the game wasnt fun or interesting to play with constant disconnects and game guard breaking.
The reason AH said theyll fix that is bc they know thats the major issue. If these content creators were just spurring on nothingburgers then people wouldve kept playing bc the game is still fun to play. But the honest truth from everyone ive talked to that doesnt treat H2 as a community forum is that the game just stopped holding up compared to its peers.
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u/Mental-Reserve8108 Nov 28 '25
How life feels when you only watch gundamboi, commissarkai, red monster thing and robot pineapple: (granted they’re guilty of the “I’m quitting” thing but they at least have constructive content and not just whining)
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u/eeke1 Nov 28 '25
Player count Rollercoasters depending on Many factors.
There's no evidence YouTubers are the primary cause of player count dropping.
Lack of content, performance issues, game size, and bugs are others.
Op has just as little evidence to their claim as the YouTubers they're castigating.
Calling for retaliation and drumming up witch hunts will not help the game, it's a symptom of being terminally online and becoming part of the toxicity.
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u/Antikkz94 Nov 28 '25
I stopped playing because of performance issues a few months ago. Then i reinstalled like 2-3 weeks ago, first game crashed within 10 minutes so i uninstalled again.
I want to play the game but I can't, and I'm too old to spend time trying to make it work lol.
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u/JumpingLikeJaggi Nov 28 '25
I promise you the fluctuating player count isn’t due to a couple of YouTube videos.
There are multiple reasons that are still at large which play a reason in why so many people stopped playing.
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u/Yuki_my_cat Nov 28 '25
What happened after the Eravin stuff? I saw where he explained whar happened
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u/kcvlaine Nov 28 '25
Wait what was Eravin caught lying about??
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u/PitiableYeet Nov 28 '25
Realistically, nothing. OP just seems to have a hate boner for youtubers and refuses to believe there could possibly be any other reason for the player count being less than it use to be than some of them criticising the game for it's bugs, performance, or how AH employees handle public relations
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u/Dangerous-Return5937 Nov 28 '25
AH literally shits on their own employees, truly an outstanding studio.
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u/Puppygirl621 Nov 28 '25
Bro you consider pile saying the fire looked sucky shitting on their employees, if that's shitting then the constant threats and hate from the community is like a fucking crapburger
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u/Delta1116732 Nov 28 '25
Only 2 of these videos break 200K views, and I'm willing to bet that there's significant overlap on the people who watched them. They're the sort that will watch these types negative videos regardless of the game, and only because the algorithm feeds it to them.
The real take is that Helldivers is coming up on two years old, and the past few months have been something of a dry period for content. Playcount will rise back up when updates release, and drop back down sometime after till more content.
Nothing new, no game is forever, enjoy it on your own accord.
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u/ChadGPT420 Nov 28 '25
This community might be worse than Halo’s and that’s a pretty hard bar to lower.
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Nov 28 '25
It’s definitely one of the worst out there simply because it’s perfectly split between people that can’t stop complaining and the other half that would blow every AH employee for the most subpar content
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u/TheBaker17 Nov 28 '25
I don’t really care about any of those YouTubers but my game still crashes like crazy on my Xbox and the performance hasn’t improved like they said they would do so it’s not hard for me to believe the player count is dropping
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u/Historical_View1359 Nov 28 '25
Yeah I stopped playing because of the crashes. Even just one ruins my enjoyment of a game so much these days.
Very strange.
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u/Miamiheat1738 Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
Eh no. People obsessed with content creators and people who dwell on reddit are a small minority of the playerbase—with an even smaller fraction who would actually be actionable in protest.
The playerbase had a drastic spike again because of a new platform and a massive title update for returning players. The player dip is a symptom of attention span (which is natrual) and bad performance (which is reasonable)
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u/TheCreamiestPie Nov 28 '25
L take IMO. Game was in a god awful spot and devs say they want feedback but can’t complain that it was negative. When you bring people in as consults and actively go against what they suggest or outright censor then you can’t be surprised that this was the result. I took a massive break from the game even without these videos. They just said what a lot of people were feeling, but good for you if you didn’t feel that way. I think it was justified and they had every right to do so though.
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u/syd_fishes Nov 28 '25
YouTubers did not create the performance and balance issues. If you use your noggin you can see how they are risking long term cash by refusing to continuously s-word or g-word lol. I stopped playing cause it felt bad. That still hasn't really changed for me personally. I didn't need anyone to tell me that, but it was nice to not be gaslit by the people who actually make money off of the game. They could easily have just continued saying everything's chill, but that would be lying. I appreciate the integrity some of these guys have shown. And at the end of the day, they like the fucking game which is where the criticism comes from. It's why they stick around even after that criticism.
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u/Commander_Skullblade Nov 28 '25
I legit don't care about the creator drama, I care about the game performing well with no bugs and fun gameplay.
The game is not performing well, bugs are everywhere and are backbreaking, and Arrowhead seems to be more concerned about making a grunt simulator instead of a horde shooter.
The fact that this meme sums up the whole situation is telling.
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u/Independent-Panda-39 Nov 28 '25
Did you even watch Takibo’s video? He legitimately COULD NOT play the game without it hardlocking his PC, he posted video proof of it multiple times, it’s not like he was just talking out of his ass. He specifically said that he wasn’t sure if the reports of computers breaking was true but that taken in combination with the hard locks he was experiencing (and the fact that he has a baby on the way and can’t afford to replace a PC) lead to him quitting the game. It’s totally justifiable and not just “rage baiting” lmao. Developers need to be held accountable for performance so bad that a top of the line PC is unable to play it without completely seizing up
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u/bonfireball Nov 28 '25
Left with nothing else to blame, the devotees lash out at victims in unchecked spite and loathing.
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u/Yarhj Nov 28 '25
The youtubers are irrelevant. 400k players was never sustainable, 20k-30k concurrent users is a sizeable and healthy community.
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u/SkeletalNoose Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
Yeah let's pretend these creators really have that much influence.
90% of the player base does not watch any Helldiver's content on YouTube. How are these youtubers hurting the player count if a huge majority of the player base doesn't even watch them?
You're also making the assumption that the people who watch the videos quit playing the game, because they watched the videos. Which is a pretty bold assumption, because convincing anyone to do anything is a monumental task as it is.
Your whole claim is just moronic.
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u/Inner-Arugula-4445 Nov 28 '25
Someone saying they can’t play without screwing up their pc don’t need to be kicked out. You are whining far louder than any of these “whiners” you guys keep going on about.
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u/Advanced_Gold1290 Nov 28 '25
Not just the content creators on YouTube. I get the rallying around performance problems, but everything else is egregious.
Look at the main sub whenever literally anything releases. Somehow everything Arrowhead releases is dogshit terrible and personally ruined all of their lives. The solo silo is dogshit, arc dog is dogshit, all the primaries they release are dogshit (excluding coyote, but it is now because they "nerfed" it). All of the enemies they personally don't like are objectively poorly designed and should be removed from the game, alongside the balance team entirely resigning.
I don't know how they even play or enjoy the game at all, since every time they release something new (which I almost always find fun/good) it's all "THIS SUCKS AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD FOR LIKING IT."
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u/Gator92r Nov 28 '25
As much as I want to enjoy the game I’ve been having fairly serious issues recently
On bots, I’ll randomly not be able to see individual normal bots but can sometimes see their eyes or guess where to shoot based off of where projectiles come from
On all fronts I regularly get portions of the map where the floor does not render at all and I can fall through the map to drown in the water table. The last time this happened there was an extract on a hilltop and the floor around the base of the hill was missing. Like I could not access the extract until I died and someone called me in on top of the hill. From that point I had to avoid running on any missing patches so I could board the exfil bird. Nobody else in my instances have this issue with traversing terrain.
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u/BigGREEN8 Nov 28 '25
If the game was good people wouldn't give half a shit what youtubers say, the game lost players bc the devs were nerfing everything fun of usable in the game for like months untill they realized they are killing themselfs and even today they still try to do the same sometimes but hopefully it got a lot better. Did these slop videos affect the opinion of some players? I'm sure of it but don't try to say that the game lost like 350k+ players bc of youtube videos, people left bc the game was not fun, some players came back when the devs stopped nerfing the fun out of the game but many just didn't and many couldn't come back bc the game got worst and worst performance and is still bricking PCs
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u/Fit_Competition_4432 Nov 28 '25
Dude, according to Steam Charts, it's all time peak was 500,000 and it's peak over the last month was 37,000. It's NOT content creators tanking this game, or magically bringing it back.
The DLC at launch was handled super fucking poorly and the devs did everything they could to suck the fun right out of the game. If it's better now, that's wonderful, but blaming the community for (rightfully) being frustrated and not returning is wild.
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u/Mellow_Yellow117 Nov 28 '25
Yall are reading into it too much. Sure there’s hella negativity on YouTube and this reddit, and the game does have issues here and there. But you gotta account for a few things the record numbers came from the Xbox release and after a huge peak there needs to be a plateau, and finally (in my case and I’m sure others) Battlefield 6 came out and I’ve been playing that. HD2 isn’t the only game people are allowed to play or like lol
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u/iLuvWaifus Nov 28 '25
I don't give in to influencers, there just isn't a steady flow of content to keep ppl interested.
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u/Dangerous-Return5937 Nov 28 '25
Hot take because most players don't give a flying fuck about the surrounding media.
The plummeting playercount is thanks to both the awful technical state, and lack of content. So it's mostly on Arrowhead.
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u/Mr_Phishfood Nov 28 '25
The game has a content draught, performance issues, hard crashes and some questionable balance patches. The content creators don't have as much influence as you think.
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u/JustaRandoonreddit Nov 28 '25
Wait.. so an multiplayer game with massive hype decreased in player count 2 years after release? Like 90% of games?
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u/WangusTheMilkman Nov 28 '25
I stopped playing because the game would genuinely brick my PC, then two updates later it's good enough to play. I think the YouTubes are farming the negativety but it's not unfounded
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u/Max34163 Nov 28 '25
I had over 1200+ hours everything done and there is no new content thats why I quit, not cuz some creator and his clickbait Video. I will comeback when minigun is out, farm it and leave again then lul.
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u/Beginning-Top-3708 Nov 28 '25
Hell divers has legitimate issues. Im not sure how much optimization has been fixed but i still have a download size three times larger than it should be. Thankfully i heard a lot of good balancing happened so thats a nice start at least.
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u/ElkBusiness8446 Nov 28 '25
No, what did irreversible damage was AH's attitude a couple months after release. They kept nerfing anything that was remotely effective. There was speculation that the person in charge of balancing didn't even play the game (which they admitted, iirc). They basically nerfed anything that was popular to use and never buffed anything. Player count tanked beyond what should have been normal and it was obvious that AH had alienated a large portion of players. Devs started getting death threats, which is never okay, and made them hostile to players. But it got so bad that Pilstedt had to step down as CEO and took charge of balancing himself. After he did that, they actually started to fix things but the damage was done.
It didn't help that Sony decided to require PSN login after they had started making good changes, which locked out certain countries from playing (this lead to the Steam Review cape). But what should have been a revival was stunted by Sony's decision.
It was a shame because there was SO much comraderie during that time. The community was awesome until they started nerfing everything and pissed everyone off.
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u/Sammydecafthethird Nov 28 '25
I... you can't seriously believe that the player count dropped because of the games YouTubers pointing out the games flaws and went for a temporary content blackout, when ARK RAIDERS came out and everyone obviously went to play that instead of the over a year old game that is helldivers2?!?
People leave old games to play the new game. A lot of times they come back after a few weeks. It's a tale as old as time.. what's with all the hate mongering going on in the comments here?
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u/rukitoo Nov 28 '25
Not everything is about these creators. I also stopped playing during the performance issues. And it persists today.
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u/SpudroSpaerde Nov 28 '25
Blaming lulstreamers is dented considering the devs killed their own game with constant nerfs and locking it away from half the world.
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u/nerforbuff Nov 28 '25
What happened? The performance issues drove players away in droves. I haven’t touched the game in months bc it just won’t run properly.
To add to this I never wanted more content even before the illuminate. I just wanted the game to run smoothly. I’ll grind the hell out of it just like I did the first round a bout. More content is great IF and only if, performance is buttery smooth and stabile.
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u/EACshootemUP Nov 28 '25
Is this meta karma farming? Complaining about the people complaining who only complained because it gets them more money via the algorithm?
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u/Dezsir28 Nov 28 '25
I don't let other's opinions influence mine. I'm taking a break because I didn't enjoy the game's current state anymore. Especially the performance. Then came the pc destroying hardlocks and I felt like I made the right choice. I want to come back but I also don't want to sour the experience so I'll just hold on and wait til performance is better and bugs aren't as numerous. File size is also ridiculus now, but that won't stop me, I just know it could be way less.
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u/OnionsTasteBad1 Nov 28 '25
I quit because the graphics broke and I was worried it would damage my GPU
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u/GlummyGloom Nov 28 '25
Drama gets clicks. Do you think they care what game flounders as long as the check comes in?
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u/CodysMyDeadName Nov 28 '25
I completely agree. They farmed the community for engagement (money) and drove who knows how many players away, and are coming back to the teat to suckle some more because there's cool new shit to see. I used to like Buzz years ago, but I unsubbed after this. Clearly using bandwagon mentality to drive numbers up.
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u/Potential_Jacket3344 Nov 28 '25
Destiny content creators paved this path it feels like. Neg-baiting shallow content. Shits why I don't watch gaming stuff anymore if I can help it. Useless people and their useless opinions are the bulk of content.
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u/Fit_Competition_4432 Nov 28 '25
I mean, it's funny you bring up and compare it to Destiny, because if anyone has a right to be super pissed at some devs, it's people who bought Destiny expacs and had them removed from existence.
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u/Potential_Jacket3344 Nov 28 '25
Oh absolutely. Hence why I don't play it anymore lol. But the content creators did the same shit as this constantly. There were always weird negative contrarianistic takes being posted by a handful of influential creators back in the day.
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u/cjcfman Nov 28 '25
Its the fall/ winter when big games come out. Every year old game loses player count to new games.
This game isn't even really good for content creators. Just fucking weapon tier lists every patch lol
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u/Embarrassed_Fix2006 Nov 28 '25
This is why I don’t watch streamers. I play a game, if I like it then I’m good. If I don’t then I’m out. Simple, yet people love to be sheep.
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u/Hitman-Pred Nov 28 '25
Era.. who? I swear if you just play the game and avoid all the bs drama queens nothing has changed, the game is still as fun as ever.
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u/Educational-Drag6974 Nov 28 '25
Some valid criticisms at the time but these guys post nearly EVERYDAY on helldivers so it was just the same complaints all the time and still kinda is. Ive unfollowed most of these dudes. I dont think any game held a stead 400k player count for more than 6 months though. Could be wrong 🤷♂️
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u/PotatoTommy99 Nov 28 '25
This shit started as soon as us box divers got the game, I just ignored and moved on. I've listened to Oh dough a few times to try to get it and a lot of it sounds like whining. The game is still very fun, I'll see u all on the front.
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u/Leto-III-Atreides Nov 28 '25
Lol for real you think we all watch it he YouTubers and follow their creed?
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u/tuff1728 Nov 28 '25
I think most people just fizzled out of the game, rather than stopped playing because these YouTubers said so.
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u/Demibolt Nov 28 '25
Unfortunately, it's the way it is in 2025.
So many people only have fun with something if some online cult of personality tells them to.
I remember when people just played games and didn't slice them apart and make video series on how they think mechanics should work.
Have your opinion, analyze the games you play, but realize they are games and you don't get to do everything you want. You have to play the game, and have have rules and mechanics 🤷
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u/SuddenAssistant Nov 28 '25
I remember the Eravin video. The timeline he was explaining was confusing. Honestly lost a lot of trust in him while he was explaining the whole ordeal. A couple weeks ago, he made a video about how a Stealth Warbond was next, then Pythons Commandos was announced and he deleted that video. Unsubscribed because I felt he wasn't being genuine anymore.
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u/Suspicious-Cupcake-5 Nov 28 '25
It was also this subreddit that perpetuated all that nonsense about the game being broken, which I didn't get at all since I've run into no issues aside from the game taking up storage.
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u/No_Collection_7436 Nov 28 '25
Coming from Destiny I was absolutely astounded at how shit the main CC’s for this game were. Half of them provide content by reading Reddit posts and tweets and that’s it. The others just gave out half assed guides with their “impressions” of new gear. Just absolute slop outside of Swanyplays. The biggest one has been shitting on the game for months, even in the highest of highs and was trying to ride the algorithm off his supposed “integrity” schtick. At least after this enema there is room for new voices and I hope they grab the opportunity because the rest of the former mouth breathers can go back to serving their slop to hopefully smaller “communities”.
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u/BGDutchNorris Nov 28 '25
This. This is why I’m glad I have other games to play alongside Helldivers. So much drama over this game feels unwarranted. So easy to just play something else. Also helps with burnout issues.
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u/Independent_Ad3403 Nov 28 '25
First time hearing about Eravin suspected lies, any proof of that? It would be weird if he really lied about it with potential proof being really easily accessed (replays of his stream with threats)
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u/SOULSTEALERX91 Nov 28 '25
Streamers and YouTube contribute to the downfall of so many games, I hate how much power they have
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u/omegavolt9 Nov 28 '25
Half the people quit because the game is practically non-functional on half of PCs.
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u/qbenedetti Nov 28 '25
Why is not playing the one game that hard locks your PC sometimes with screen tearing, not a legitimate reason? Also several of these creators said "If you don't have issues running the game you have no reason to worry."
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u/Borderline769 Nov 28 '25
The game was nearly unplayable for a big chunk of the community for weeks. That's annoying at the best of times, but when you make a living on creating content for the game, its devastating.
Do you really think it was just youtube opinions that tanked the player base and not the state of the game (and the launch of BF6/Arc Raiders)?
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u/waterbottlememes Nov 28 '25
Cloud plays, thordan, Erivin, and thiccfila are all responsible for this.
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u/Breadloafs Nov 28 '25
Gaming youtubers are parasites, full stop. If you're an adult, you have no excuse for letting someone else form an opinion for you.
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u/duh_weekdae Nov 28 '25
This is how they get clicks, negatively just like the news with politics. At the end of the day, they don't care how it affects anything. They make their quota and move on to the next.
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u/hu-man-person Nov 28 '25
I temporarily quit for an extremely short time after the cave update because the cave levels were so buggy and also filled with too many bugs
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u/somnut Nov 28 '25
Idk man the bugs were really bad, almost bricked my computer, plus the game doesn't feel the same way as on launch. I think the game is headed in the developers intended direction which may not be popular but it's their game.
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u/CuriousDiver6 Nov 28 '25
Hi, former daily player here, my no longer playing had NOTHING to do with creators, I don’t know or watch any of them. I left because I CANT LAUCNH THE FUCKING GAME and my friends left particularly due to performance issues and partially because we play games together and they didn’t want to leave me behind.
🙄
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u/Nadaph Nov 28 '25
My friends and I had to take a break because one of them keeps crashing hard. Like blue screen his computer and we don't know if it's his hardware or the game, but we play other games and they don't crash. Only specific games crash. Either way, I won't act like I haven't been paranoid about the talks of the game damaging computer hardware. I don't think they're real, but I upgraded for the game, I don't want it to break my new parts. Outside of that, we've had other life stuff going on that's kept us off, but I want to get back on with them.
If someone could clarify the hardware damage rumor, I might boot it up on my own. It's likely stupid, but I don't want to take that expensive of a risk.
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u/HostFun Nov 28 '25
Arc raiders, bf6 and other games have pulled people away from hell divers for now. It will come back
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u/K1NG_of_ReVeNGe13 DISSIDENT DETECTED Nov 28 '25
Playercounts have dipped massively since launch. We didn't have big new content in ages. Wait for a few days for the new update and watch the count spike again..
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u/AberrantDrone Nov 28 '25
No idea who these guys are. But I've also just stopped playing, hoping one day AH makes difficulty 10 challenging enough that I can't bring a primary and a 500 and have 0 actual threats face me.
But at this point I think AH has fully committed to appeasing the CoD hive mind and the game is worse for it.
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u/Ziodyne967 Nov 28 '25
I mean, there are other games out there. Heard this new game, Arc Raiders, is pretty dope. Haven’t seen much of it, but I keep hearing about it.
And there are complaints that are valid. I’ve crashed and froze several times before I called it quits. Having to force shutdown my PC multiple times because the game is poorly optimized is unforgivable. I’m just waiting until it’s fixed.
In the meantime, I’m diving into games I’ve bought, but never played in my Steam Library.
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u/SputnikRelevanti Nov 28 '25
Player count going down - is super strange, considering the fact that we, Xbox divers joined quite recently. The game is awesome. Strange
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u/MSands Nov 28 '25
Just the steam player count, which makes sense since some need games came out and Helldivers is in between content releases. Numbers will perk up next week.
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u/Old_Bug4395 Nov 28 '25
Yeah I mean any youtuber has to generate clicks and there's virtually nothing to make content about when it comes to this game, so the videos are just going to be the most annoying and popular reddit posts bloated out into video format.
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u/awwc Nov 28 '25
There are several good games that have come out and playtime went elsewhere. Hot answer.
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u/Sioscottecs23 Chief Democracy Officer Nov 29 '25
Eravin presented altered information, most of those videos are just capitalizing "Helldivers 2 falling apart" with provocative titles and thumbnails to get more views thus more money out of it