Helldivers 2, one of the best multiplayer games of the year and a surprise PC hit for PlayStation, is now taking a hit in its reputation. The publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation) is starting to enforce all Helldivers 2 players on PC to link their Steam account with a PlayStation Network (PSN) account by May 30.
From the announcement post, the account linking “is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour”.
The game was always meant to require PC players on Steam to link a PSN account, but this was not enforced at launch due to “technical issues”. Most likely due to the game servers being hammered, like most games that require online servers to function during their launch window.
While this would have been a minor issue of some folks didn’t want to create another account to play a game, a bigger problem has now revealed itself: by having this account linking mandatory, players who live in countries where PSN services are not offered will be locked out of the game they’ve purchased and played for months.
SteamDb spotted an update to the Steam listing on Helldivers 2, as the game is now delisted in 177 different countries, all of which (with one exception) does not have PSN support. For Southeast Asia, this includes the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.
The exception is for Japan, in which there is now a Japan-specific release of Helldivers 2, which has Japanese voiceovers, in that country.
PlayStation Network (which includes access to the PlayStation Store) is available in 69 countries– previously 70 after PlayStation pulled out of Russia in 2022.
Having to create and link a publisher-specific account is annoying. But this issue goes beyond that, as players who have enjoyed Helldivers 2 on PC in countries outside of PlayStation Network’s coverage will, at the time of writing, will not be able to play the game anymore.
PC players have responded with 200,000 negative reviews on Steam right after this announcement was made and throughout the past weekend.
Johan Pilstedt, CEO at developer Arrowhead, has tweeted that they are aware of the backlash.
“We are talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries,” he tweeted. “Your voice has been heard, and I am doing everything I can to speak for the community – but I don’t have the final say.”
PlayStation will be releasing Ghost Of Tsushima – Director’s Cut on PC this month, and that will include cross-play with PlayStation, just like Helldivers 2. But the release of Ghost Of Tsushima comes a more integrated PSN features for PC including an a PlayStation overlay.
UPDATE 06/05/24, 1.33 PM: PlayStation has issued a statement that Helldivers 2 on PC won’t require a mandatory account linking between Steam and PSN.
Looks like democracy wins, and we, the Helldivers 2 players in countries without PSN support have preserved our way of life.