Palworld has gone the distance since its launch on January 19, boasting a peak player count of over two million players, but now Helldivers 2 has come and taken the number one spot in Steam sales at launch.
Helldivers 2 officially launches today, and although it has been only out for hours, it has become the top-selling Steam game (by revenue), even surpassing the 2024 lightning-in-a-bottle that is Palworld. Steam sales charts do factor in pre-orders, but AAA titles such as Call of Duty and Counter-Strike 2 have fallen below the Arrowhead Game Studios title in revenue earned. Helldivers 2 was previously at #35 on the Steam top-selling list before launch.
To add to the impressive sales figures, the separate Helldivers 2 Super Citizen Edition also appears on the top-selling list at number eight (with upgrades to this version appearing at number 9). What’s notable about all of the impressive numbers is the Steam top-selling list tracks sale numbers by revenue, and Helldivers 2 sits at the number one spot, while it remains at $39.99 MSRP (notably $20 less than newly launched titles) on the Steam platform for the standard copy of the game.
Helldivers 2 is the first title in the PlayStation Game Studios catalogue to launch on PC and PS5 at the same time while remaining a PS5 console exclusive, which is an outlier compared to other notable PlayStation Game Studio releases. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart initially launched in June 2021 for the PlayStation 5, and eventually, Sony launched the title two full years later on PC in July 2023.
Although this has been commonplace for PlayStation Game Studio-published titles in the past — looking at you God of War (2018) and Horizon Zero Dawn — maybe the success of Helldivers 2 will move the needle for PlayStation to make more simultaneous releases in the future. But for now, fans can only wait and see what happens next.
Helldivers 2 is out now on PlayStation 5 and PC.
