Helldivers 2’s latest update kicks idle players back to the title screen

The latest Helldivers 2 update has introduced a much-requested feature designed to stop idle players hogging server space.

The game’s unexpected success has contributed to it frequently reaching server capacity, which in turn has led to some players staying logged in when not playing in order to avoid waiting next time they want to play.

Arrowhead Game Studios has targeted AFK (away from keyboard) players in Helldivers 2’s latest update, which was released for PC and PS5 on Thursday.

Players who remain idle for 15 minutes will now automatically be kicked back to the title screen.

The new update (see patch notes below) also addresses multiple crashes and should improve general stability, the studio said.

Helldivers 2’s popularity shows no sign of slowing down yet on Steam – at the time of writing, it broke its peak concurrent record again in the past 24 hours, hitting 457,649 concurrent players in total according to SteamDB.

Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt recently said the company wants to recruit more developers to “beef up” its content plans for the Sony-published shooter.