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In a new Q&A with Mikael Eriksson, the Helldivers 2 Game Director revealed that Arrowhead are “looking into” starting closed beta tests to help the studio eliminate crashes before releasing new patches to the masses.
Eriksson admitted that many players have experienced crashes, including himself. As for why it’s happening so frequently, Eriksson explained, “In this specific case, the reason for is that – we do extensive testing inhouse and try to catch all of these instances – but sometimes they can slip through”. So, because of this, “even one crash or one of type of issue… that can be enough to really spike the crash rates for a lot of different players”.
The game director added that it’s “unacceptable” that Arrowhead “have been unable to catch these crashes” before patches are released, but a reason for it is that “extensive testing is just not on the scale of the full game with all of the players”. So, to help combat this issue, the studio is “looking into doing closed beta testing”.
Helldivers 2 Closed Beta Tests Might Allow for ‘Up to a Thousand Players’
While not sharing specifics for when closed beta tests might start and how to sign up, Eriksson at least divulged that they might allow “up to a thousand players or more”. Although the game has way more players than just a thousand with SteamDB reporting 24-hour peaks of 30,000 for PC alone, Eriksson believes just a thousand “will be enough to catch these crashes” Arrowhead miss through inhouse testing.
Closed beta tests are used for other multiplayer live-service experiences, so it is good idea for Arrowhead to explore. Whether it will be successful in catching all crashes and issues remains to be seen, but more hands helping with the testing surely can’t hurt. Just don’t expect the closed beta tests to be used for feedback concerning balance changes as it appears it will be for finding and reporting crashes only.
In the same Q&A interview, the game director shared that Arrowhead are currently intending to release patches “roughly every two weeks” before returning to updates with new content and features by December. We don’t officially know of any content cooking behind-the-scenes, but leaks have revealed a new stealth Warbond plus a lava planet heavily resembling Mustafar from Star Wars.
While Arrowhead want to rapidly release performance patches, CEO, Shams Jorjani, has warned that “performance will take many more months of work” to meaningfully improve. This is because of the game’s archaic and defunct graphics engine, which has thankfully been substituted by Unreal Engine 5 in official first details about Arrowhead’s next game.
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