How to fix Helldivers 2 'failed to join lobby' error

Almost a decade after the original Helldivers hit storefronts, the sequel to the third-person shooter is finally here. Although you might’ve been hoping to unleash chaos across the galaxy, an error which prevents you from joining a lobby in Helldivers 2 is causing the most mayhem.

Since the title just launched, it appears to be a matter of the servers getting overloaded with fellow players who are eager to enlist in the Helldivers.

Potential Helldivers 2 ‘failed to join lobby’ solutions

The fix may not work every time, but try restarting your game and disabling crossplay from the options tab. This will stop the game searching for a match across PC and PlayStation by restricting you to the servers of the platform that you’re on. Luckily, joining your friends doesn’t seem to be causing problems, so you may have to gather your trusty squad rather than searching for a random team.

The CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios, Johan Pilestedt, issued an update on this error via the Helldivers 2 Discord, reassuring the player base that the devs are “working as hard as we can on resolving these, the volume of players exposed some shenanigans in the system that went past many, many, many hours or testing.”

They explain that “we have tried resolving it on the backend only, but it seems like we will have to patch the game to resolve the issue” and offer an apology.