Helldivers 2 is going from strength to strength having just launched its second premium Warbond since the game’s release. The online playerbase is still going strong, and it’s currently sitting as the 2nd in Steam’s top seller list.
According to an article posted by Gameindustry.biz featuring sales data from GSD, which tracks both physical and digital games in the UK, the success of Helldivers 2 might be even greater than we thought. Not only did the article note that Helldivers 2 is the best-selling game for second consecutive month, it also mentioned that its sales are “now trending ahead of where Spider-Man 2 (Sony’s last big release) was after the same length of time.”
There are, of course, a few things to consider in that equation: Helldivers 2 is a much cheaper game than Spider-Man 2, and was available on two platforms at launch. Even when you account for that though, the numbers are crazy good.
Weirdly, however, neither Sony or Arrowhead have actually given any proper confirmation of the game’s sales numbers. When Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was released, for example, Sony had no problem boasting about its success.
We are left to guess just how successful the game has been, then. The last time we got anything remotely resembling an official word was when Arrowhead’s CEO seemed to confirm someone’s guess of 3m sales.
Out of curiosity, I’ve reached out to Arrowhead to ask why they seem cautious to confirm solid names when usually a studio would love to crow about their successes. Maybe I’ll hear something.
The Gameindustry.biz article goes on to discuss other games, and that’s where we see the surprising return of Command & Conquer. Several Command & Conquer games that had been missing from Steam were finally added to the storefront, both separately and as part of a mammoth(tank) bundle, and there was even a potential tease about more Command & Conquer remasters happening. It seems like people were pretty chuffed because both C&C: Generals and C&C: Red Alert 2 managed to break into the top 10 best-selling games in the UK in March. That’s freaking awesome, in my book.
Apart from that, the charts weren’t anything too exciting. Dragon’s Dogma 2 came in 3rd behind EA Sports FC 24 and Helldivers 2, and Hogwarts Legacy is in 9th place, continuing to show Warner Bros. why there choice to double-down on live-service is a terrible plan.
On the hardware side of things, console sales were up 22% from last month but down 15% from March last year. However, the article does note that March 2023 was when the supply of PS5 consoles finally cleared up which saw a big spike in sales numbers. To be more specific, PS5 sales are down 9% over March last year, but still 25% up over last month. Not too shabby.
It’ll be interesting to see what an official confirmation of the rumoured PS5 Pro might do to the sales.
Nintendo Switch is also up 20% month-on-month, but down 20% year-on-year. That’s enough to beat out Xbox which is apparently up 19% month-on-month but is also down by 18% year-on-year.
For a much fuller and better look at everything, remember to check out the Gameindustry.biz article. Finally, here’s the UK physical and digital sales chart for March 2024.
| Position | Title |
| 1 | Helldivers 2 (Sony) |
| 2 | EA Sports FC 24 (EA) |
| 3 | Dragon’s Dogma 2 (Capcom) |
| 4 | WWE 2K24 (2K Games) |
| 5 | Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (Square Enix) |
| 6 | Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege (Ubisoft) |
| 7 | Command & Conquer: Generals (EA) |
| 8 | Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar) |
| 9 | Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros) |
| 10 | Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (EA) |