Recent Steam reviews for Helldivers 2 are overwhelmingly positive, with 2,225 negative reviews being lost and over 29,000 positive reviews gained in the last month.

Helldivers 2 has certainly regained the enthusiasm of its players, despite recent snafus involving Democracy Space Station. Its recent Steam reviews are now "Overwhelmingly positive", meaning that over 95% have left a positive impression after fighting for Super Earth.

I normally wouldn't give too much weight to this kind of thing, but Helldivers 2 is an exception, as its players have used Steam Reviews to make their voices known by the thousands. The outcry when Sony tried to force a PSN registration after launch was massive. Steam's funny, red bar graphs don't show all the community disputes that have taken place. These mainly concern weapon balancing. The Helldivers 2 Community is unique in its loudness. I trust that this is a positive sign.

If you look closely at the numbers, it's really staggering. SteamDB shows that the overall negative reviews are down by 2,225, meaning players have either flipped their scores or removed their reviews. Meanwhile, over 29,000 players gave the game a thumbs-up. Since November 27, there's been an increase in positive reviews. I can't for the life of my connect it to anything but a general atmosphere.

The only thing I can think of is that this is due to the Steam Autumn Sale. On November 27, the game was discounted by 20%. This deal ends today. Helldivers 2 is a great first impression, but it loses its shine over time. It's not really a criticism, but rather a result of the genre. Looking at recent reviews from the past week, there is a good buffer of 20-80 hours reviews. This is something I would consider new, but not as many as a fleet of 29,000. There are also plenty of seasoned veterans with a few hundred grenade hours.

Why? Arrowhead completed its 60-day update plan in October. The game seems to be in good shape. The players are less vocal about weapon balance, although they still complain sometimes, because it's the Internet. And while the Democracy Space Station implementation was a little wonky, it objectively engages more players in the Galactic War decision-making process. Democracy isn't perfect, but sometimes players make stupid decisions.

Arrowhead will have a harder time reducing the "all reviews" figure, mainly due to math. Steam's review score is based on a percentage. The problem with percentage numbers is that the more reviews you have, the more positive ones you need to get. This number keeps going up, even when you receive those happy impressions.

Currently, the game has received 938.882 reviews - both positive and critical. 1% of 938,882 is 9,388. If you add this percent to the total, it becomes 9,482. It's like saying that the number of people you have to impress is increasing, even if your game is doing well. No wonder Bethesda spent so much time last year reading Steam reviews in an attempt to flip them.