WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE HELLDIVERS 2 AND PALWORLD LAUNCHES

Summary from the TLDR Web Dev newsletter

When games have unforeseen popular launches, like Palworld and Helldivers 2 did, it can be hard for them to stay online under such heavy load. Several factors contribute to launch failures: inadequate server capacity, unforeseen bugs appearing at scale, poor community management, and underestimating player demand. To manage these issues, some companies use flexible scaling solutions with cheap servers (like Google Cloud) or carefully design games to reduce complexity (like Thatgamecompany), while others focus on increasing the number of players in a single instance (like Unchained Entertainment).