Why does Helldivers 2 say 0 active players?

Helldivers 2 came out of nowhere in early 2024 to completely dominate the co-op shooter market. It’s reached new concurrent player peaks weeks after its release and it’s still growing strong in late February. However, recently, many users have come across an issue in Helldivers 2 where the game says there are 0 active players, enemies killed, bullets fired, etc. across all planets.

This can either mean one of two things: Helldivers 2 has died quicker than any top-selling game in history or there’s a bug causing this issue to occur. To put any doubts to rest, Helldivers 2 is still alive and well and there’s currently a visual bug causing the 0 active players problem. Below, you can see why this is happening and what you can do to fix it.

Helldivers 2 0 active players bug fix

Right now, there’s not much you can do about the 0 active players bug in Helldivers 2. It’s simply a visual glitch the developers have to fix in the next patch update, which should come fairly soon.

In the meantime, you can continue to take on campaigns and visit planets to clear them of any infestations. Any Galactic War progress you make will continue to be tracked as soon as the bug has been patched.

How to join players in Helldivers 2

Unfortunately, along with the 0 active players bug, there is also an annoying issue where you’re unable to join players. This is due to the fact that the game is currently showing there are no players for you to join. If you want to try and join fellow Helldivers on a mission, here’s what you can attempt:

• Don’t go into the Quickplay feature of Helldivers 2, as this is currently bugged
• Set your Matchmaking Status to “Public”
• Select a planet and then choose your preferred difficulty level
• Select an SOS Beacon or Live Mission that have player names next to them
• Join one of these active missions and you should be partied up with a squad on your next drop

Once you have all that squared away, you should be all set to continue playing Helldivers 2. You can also read a recent Reddit thread for more potential ways to join players, as users have reported other workarounds as well.

Of course, you also have the current 450,000 player cap still in effect, which will likely place you in a server queue when you first try to hop on the game.