Helldivers 2 has dropped to a ‘Mostly Negative’ rating on Steam, with just 37% of user reviews over the past 30 days coming in positive – drawn from over 10,000 recent entries, per SteamDB – as reported by Push Square. The score marks a sharp fall from 52% positive in April 2026, with the sharpest single-day spike in negative reviews arriving on May 7, the same day the Exo Experts War Bond launched.
The current backlash has been building since late 2025, when Arrowhead began leaning harder into monetisation through War Bonds while rolling out balance patches that players felt made enemies more punishing without meaningfully improving weapons. The Exo Experts War Bond – which locks a new vehicle stratagem behind a paywall – proved the breaking point, with Reddit’s r/Helldivers community calling for a boycott and renaming the game ‘Nerfdivers’ in protest. This follows a pattern Arrowhead has been here before, having already pledged improved communication after a previous wave of Steam review bombs triggered by weapon nerfs in the Escalation of Freedom update.
Honestly, a 37% positive rating isn’t a bump in the road – it’s a live service game entering genuinely dangerous territory. Player counts have dipped 28% week-over-week to around 67,400 average concurrent players, the lowest figure since March 2025 per Steam Charts, and live service revenue reportedly fell 19% year-on-year in Q1 2026. It’s a trajectory that should feel familiar – Destiny 2 hit its own review floor through the same slow erosion of player trust, and recovery from that kind of sentiment hole takes far more than a blog post.
Arrowhead’s response – an apologetic Steam post stating, ‘Helldivers 2 matters to all of us, and we want to be clearer about what we’re working on and what’s coming next’ – landed with the community about as warmly as you’d expect. One player’s reply cuts straight to it: ‘Stop ruining the game. Stop with the balancing updates. It’s a co-op game in a PvE environment. Why do things need to be nerfed/buffed like it’s some sort of PvP game?’ A Reddit AMA fronted by CEO Johan Pilestedt, intended to open dialogue, instead became a flashpoint – widely cited as the moment community sentiment fully curdled.
Arrowhead has committed to a public beta for a Galactic War overhaul slated for May 20–27, which will test free exosuit prototypes and Illuminate nerfs – the kind of concrete action that words alone haven’t been able to buy back. Whether that’s enough to shift the numbers before Sony’s next investor update on June 5 is a different question entirely, and right now the community isn’t feeling particularly generous.
Do you think Arrowhead can turn the tide before Helldivers 2 loses its player base for good, or has the trust broken past the point of a beta patch fixing it? Sound off in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more Helldivers 2 coverage.
