Almost all Xbox exclusives are heading to PS5 if they aren't there already, and last year PlayStation brought something back – Helldivers 2. A new report claims that Helldivers 2 has now sold more than 20 million copies, but despite a strong start to life for its Xbox port, the Series X|S version hasn't contributed that much to the total.
Helldivers 2 outsold nearly every other PlayStation game in history
While the numbers aren't official, the latest Helldivers 2 sales numbers come from Alinea Analytics, a platform dedicated to tracking video game sales and providing interesting behind-the-scenes information. According to Aline, Helldivers 2 sold over 20 million copies, which, if accurate, makes it the fifth best-selling PlayStation game of all time.
According to Fandom, the only PlayStation games that have outsold Helldivers 2 are The Last of Us, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Marvel's Spider-Man, and 2018's God of War. Two of them — TLOU and Spider-Man — have the advantage of being remastered and, in one case, remastered, although as a counterweight, Helldivers 2 is the only game in the top five that you can play on three platforms.
Insider claims that more Sony games are on the way to Xbox after Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 paves the way for more PlayStation games on Xbox.
Helldivers 2 Xbox sales weren't as strong as we thought
This brings us neatly to the Xbox of it all. Helldivers 2 sold nearly a million copies in less than a week when it arrived on Xbox, a significant increase from the 633,000 sold on PS5 during its original launch week. A breakdown of the data five months later shows that sales of Helldivers on the X|S series have slowed significantly after the first week.
While Helldivers 2 was slower on PS5 in those early days, as word got out, people continued to pick up on it. For the eighth day, PlayStation's comparative sales surpassed Xbox's sales of the game. Five months later, the Xbox failed to even double its six-day total, selling 1.6 million copies. In the first five months of the game on PS5, it sold more than four million.
The biggest takeaway from the Xbox portion of Alinea's Helldivers is that there were many Xbox owners who eagerly jumped on the Helldivers bandwagon. About a million of them. 1.6 million in sales is also nothing to be sniffed at and a number that makes PlayStation and Arrowhead's efforts to put Helldivers 2 on Xbox more than worthwhile.
PlayStation will really be looking at how many Helldivers 2 sales were on Steam. 13.1 million of them, i.e. well over half. Due to Helldivers 2's multiplayer and live-service nature, the typical PS5 first and then PC port trend bucked that PlayStation has stuck to in this modern era. However, between Helldivers' numbers and how well Stellar Blade sold on PC, there may be a rethinking of the gaps it leaves between cross-platform releases.
- Released
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February 8, 2024
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and gore, intense violence, in-game purchases, user interaction
- Developers
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Arrowhead Game Studios, Nixxes
- Publishers
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Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation Publishing
