Helldivers 2 finally adds a much-requested AFK kick timer, stopping undemocratic glory hounds from twiddling their thumbs in perpetuity

A squad of heroic helldivers stood back-to-back, firing weapons at bugs in Helldivers 2.
(Image credit: Arrowhead Games)

Helldivers 2 continues to slowly grease the wheels on its war against bloated servers—in the past couple of weeks, I've gone from having a broken matchmaking system and an inaccessible game (even on weekday evenings) to something I can reasonably play most nights. Granted, I'm in a UK time zone, so I've got a hefty deployment advantage.

One part of the problem is that Helldivers 2 didn't launch with an AFK kick function, which has been causing its fair share of upset unfortunates faced with long queue times. A certain contingent of the player base has been logging on early, or simply not turning their PCs off overnight—an understandable response to impossible queue times, but also kind of a jerk move for jerks. No longer.

Patch 1.000.11 reads: "Implemented a functionality that will kick players who remain idle for 15 minutes back to the title screen." That's a harsh time limit, though extreme times cause for extreme measures—and it could be something that's lifted when capacity is improved, which is definitely happening. Arrowhead Games' CEO wrote on Twitter earlier this week that the team's engineers were doing the equivalent of "tuning a Vespa to compete in F1".

While the AFK timer is this mini-patches' marquee feature, there have also been several crash fixes as well, which you can read below:

  • Fixed multiple crashes triggered when joining other players’ ships.
  • Fixed crash triggered when exiting ADS.
  • Fixed crash triggered when players leave a session while bombardments are active.
  • Fixed issue where online missions in Galactic War Map were unselectable.
  • Fixed issue with GameGuard and Steam’s “verify integrity” step.
  • Fixed issue with GameGuard and the Windows firewall.
  • Fixed issue preventing access to Ship Management panel.
  • Fixed issue causing players to get stuck in the defrosting or in the ship intro cinematic
  • Fixed crash triggered when the process of buying Super Credits fails.
  • Fixed crash triggered after consecutive quickplay attempts.

The patch notes also highlight a few known issues with fixes in the works, including the game's currently-busted armour values, mid-play disconnects, and the delayed deployment of our loyal Helldivers' well-earned rewards. 

It'll be interesting to see if these rapid-fire hotfixes do anything to stem the tide of negative reviews on Steam. Despite some pretty universal acclaim and a giant playerbase, Helldivers 2 is still sitting on Mixed at the time of writing, though that's to be expected when large swathes of the base can't access a game they paid for—even if the game's unanticipated success came out of left-field for Arrowhead Games.

Helldivers 2 weaponsHelldivers 2 stratagemsHelldivers 2 loadoutsHelldivers 2 armorHelldivers 2 medals

Helldivers 2 weapons: Best guns of Super Earth
Helldivers 2 stratagems: Understand the ordinance
Helldivers 2 loadouts: Finest kits for bug-killing
Helldivers 2 armor: Which suits to wear
Helldivers 2 medals: Where to claim more currency

Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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