Well, this wasn’t on my bingo card for 2025: Helldivers 2, a game developed by Arrowhead and published by Sony, is officially coming to Xbox Series X/S on August 26th. That’s right—Sony is bringing one of its own live-service hits to Microsoft’s console. It feels surreal, like catching Kratos with a Game Pass tattoo. But it isn’t some hallucination: the announcement was initially made during a developer livestream, and has now been confirmed by Xbox itself.
“We know gamers have been asking for this for some time and we are so excited to bring more Helldivers into our game. We have so much more in store for the future months and years – and the more players we have the more stories we can tell! The fight for Super Earth has only just begun.” said Helldivers 2 Game Director Mikael Eriksson on Xbox Wire.
It’s a surprising move, but also a logical one. Helldivers 2 lives and dies on its player base. As a chaotic, co-op-focused live-service shooter, it needs healthy matchmaking, fast queue times, and a thriving ecosystem of cape-wearing cannon fodder to keep the war effort going. With live-service games, exclusivity can quickly become a death sentence, and Sony seems to have realised that expanding reach is essential for long-term sustainability.
The Xbox version is launching with all previously released content and includes cross-play support, so Xbox players can dive straight into the fight alongside those on PS5 and PC. It’ll be priced at $39.99 for the standard edition or $59.99 for the Super Citizen Edition, which comes with a handful of cosmetic bonuses like the TR-7 Ambassador of the Brand cape and some fancy armour sets.
Now, to be clear, this isn’t Arrowhead independently deciding to bring the game to Xbox. Helldivers is a Sony-owned IP—they’ve held the trademark since the original game back in 2015. So any move to bring the sequel to other platforms had to go through Sony, not the developers. This is a strategic decision on PlayStation’s part, not a case of Arrowhead suddenly breaking free from the mothership.
What makes this even more interesting is that just a few weeks ago, Arrowhead’s new CEO Shams Jorjani confirmed that their next game is being self-funded and won’t be part of any PlayStation partnership—at least for now. The studio has expressed appreciation for Sony’s role in getting Helldivers 2 off the ground, but they’re taking the reins for their upcoming project and plan to “call 100% of the shots.” That said, Jorjani made it clear the studio is still open to working with Sony in the future, so the door isn’t slammed shut.
One thing is very clear about Helldiver 2: your friends are much more dangerous than any of the giant bugs and socialist robots you’re dispatched to dispatch. Over countless hours my comrades-in-arms have shot me in the head, decapitated me with a laser drone, blown me up countless times using a wide variety of orbital…
Sony deciding to bring Helldivers 2 to Xbox on the exact same day That Gears of War – one of Xbox’s most iconic names – launches on PlayStation feels important. Does Sony no longer see Microsoft as a direct competitor? Because putting one of their own games on Xbox was something they would never have done prior to Xbox’s drastic shift toward becoming the biggest publisher in the world.
And perhaps, if we venture into conspiracy theory territory, was there a deal made; if we put Gears on PlayStation, will you put Helldivers 2 on Xbox? Maybe that’s too outlandish, and yet part of me wonders. Sure, it’s not quite a 1-to-1 scenario as Helldivers 2 is technically only a 2nd party game whilst Gears of War is, of course, 1st party. However, Sony themselves has said they consider 2nd part games to be 1st party internally.
The numbers help explain why this shift is happening, too. Since launching back in February 2024, Helldivers 2 has been a massive hit. It quickly became one of Sony’s fastest-selling game of all time, pushing over 15 million copies and averaging around 2.5 million players per week. But like any live-service title, it needs to maintain momentum. Bringing in fresh blood from the Xbox community is a smart way to extend the game’s life—and keep the servers buzzing with activity (and friendly fire).
It’s hard not to view this as part of Sony’s broader change in strategy. They’ve already started putting more titles on PC, but Helldivers 2 is a different beast entirely—this is a still-ongoing, live multiplayer game getting a full Xbox release while it’s still thriving. That’s a far cry from older single-player titles making the jump years later.
Ultimately, it’s a win for everyone involved. Xbox players get to join the chaos, PlayStation gets a larger install base to monetise through cosmetics and season passes, and Arrowhead gets more cannon fodder for the war against the Terminid menace. And hey, maybe it sets the stage for a future where platform walls aren’t quite so rigid—at least when it comes to games that need a healthy population to survive.
But it also feels like another momentous shift in an industry that has already been rocked by Xbox’s new game plan.
So yeah, I’m surprised. Genuinely. A Sony-published game arriving on Xbox still feels like some kind of corporate fever dream, or like hell just froze over while pigs fly through the sky. But if any game made sense to be the first across that line, it’s Helldivers 2. Just remember: spread democracy. Liberate bugs. And try not to shoot your teammates in the back—unless they’re on Xbox. Then it’s fair game.