After significant backlash, Sony has announced that they won’t be moving forward with a controversial update to Helldivers 2 that would have required players on Steam to link the game to a PlayStation Network account. At midnight, the company posted the following:
Helldivers fans — we’ve heard your feedback on the Helldivers 2 account linking update. The May 6 update, which would have required Steam and PlayStation Network account linking for new players and for current players beginning May 30, will not be moving forward.
We’re still…
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 6, 2024
The news was met with a collective sigh of relief from many in the game’s community (and likely some of its developers). The CEO and lead creative director of Arrowhead, Johan Pilestedt, posted on X: “I want to thank our partners and friends at @PlayStation for quickly and effectively making the decision to leave PSN linking optional.”
Late last week, it was made clear that Helldivers 2, one of this year’s breakout successes that reached an all-time peak of close to half a million concurrent players on Steam, was going to enforce requiring players to link a PSN profile with their Helldivers 2 account to keep playing. While the game’s Steam page always stated this would be the case, this linking was not initially enforced.
Players disliked this for various reasons, but one of the main gripes was that this move would functionally region-lock the game, as there are over one hundred countries where PSN is unavailable. If Sony had gone through with this, it would have been impossible to legally play Helldivers 2 in those places, even for those who had already purchased it before this policy was enacted.
Last week’s announcement saw a wave of backlash, and the game’s Steam page was flooded with hundreds of thousands of negative reviews, eventually resulting in its Steam rating dropping below 60% approval. Some even went as far as review bombing the original Helldivers, which was not going to be impacted by these changes.
However, with the news that the PSN account linking will no longer be required, hopefully, one of this year’s bright spots in an otherwise brutal time for the industry can maintain its momentum and continue to deliver satirical, high-casualty mayhem.