Helldivers 2 has suddenly become unplayable for some PC players on older systems due to a new hard requirement not supported by aging CPUs.
While the minimum PC specs on the Steam page have not changed, the game now requires AVX2 support to run thanks to recent optimisations.
However, many players have been running the game on systems without AVX2 support and, as a result, are now locked out of the game.
AVX2 (or Advanced Vector Extensions) essentially allows for fast and efficient CPU usage and was first supported by Intel in 2013. It means CPUs released prior to this won’t have AVX2 and therefore will no longer be able to run Helldivers 2.
The Helldivers 2 Discord server has been awash with players suddenly unable to play the game on PC – a game that’s not free-to-play but was previously paid for and playable for the past year.
“Can’t believe I can’t play a game I’ve fully paid for and have the required minimum specs for,” wrote one player in Discord.
“600+ hours in a game I love just to be locked out is making me so frustrated to the point I just want to ask for a refund instead of fixing their mistakes,” wrote another.
“The AVX2 check in the script is experimental, and can throw false positives, which is why it’s wise to manually check your processor model for the AVX2 support from the manufacturer’s documentation,” explained Discord moderator Birby.
Another reply from the moderator reads: “That processor does not support AVX2, which is now a hard minimum requirement for processors. Unfortunately you will require a system upgrade.”
Yet despite moderators attempting to reply to all players, the conversation has become decidedly heated from both sides.
“I don’t like to have to tell people their 13 year old processor is out of date,” wrote Birby. “I have fielded this question hundreds of times in the past week. I sit here and help people in 48hr stints before going to bed. People will piss and moan and argue, not to mention insult and attack us for being the bearers of bad news. I get you’re venting, but as I keep saying – it is up to you as the consumer to confirm your system meets spec before purchase, and you should never be surprised if your out of spec machine can’t run the game.”
On top of sharing a current known list of issues, moderators have shared multiple fixes for a string of current issues, from checking minimum spec requirements, to rolling back AMD and NVIDIA GPU drivers, to purging downloaded mods from the system.
Developer Arrowhead itself is yet to publicly respond to players. Eurogamer has contacted the studio and publisher Sony for comment.
Over on console, Helldivers 2 recently received a PS5 Pro patch to boost performance.
Meanwhile, creative director Johan Pilestedt discussed “ridiculous” layoffs across the industry at this year’s GDC, due to studios’ dogged reliance on battle royales.
“We will always go through the cycles of death and rebirth, but now that cycle is unnecessarily brutal because we don’t diversify enough,” he said. “We need to make more types of games because people are playing more than ever and still we are unable to stay in business. It’s ridiculous.”