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Following fan backlash, Sony is canceling a planned update for the popular multiplayer game Helldivers 2 that would have required players who purchased the game on PC to link their copies to PSN accounts—which, if the name didn’t clue you in, is generally something people only have if they game on a PlayStation console.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the company credited “feedback” for the change and said it is still “learning what is best for PC players.”
While PSN (short for PlayStation Network) accounts are free to create and do not require account holders to actually own a PlayStation console, the proposed update proved controversial among the Helldivers community, with user reviews on Steam dropping from “Mostly Positive” to “Overwhelmingly Negative” over the weekend. As of writing, the game currently holds a “Mixed” rating.
Were the update to go through, new players would have had to link their accounts by May 30, and existing players would have needed to do so by June 4.
Why are people mad at Helldivers 2?
News of the update briefly pulled the PC version of Helldivers 2 from purchase in 177 countries, as PSN does not operate in those regions. If the update went live, players in those regions who had already bought the game would have needed to circumvent Sony’s terms of service to continue playing.
Affected areas included Jamaica, Bangladesh, Belarus, and almost the entirety of Africa. Even Sony’s home country of Japan was impacted–the game was available via a “separate package,” but users were not able to buy the “global version.”
“Ouch, right in the review score,” stated Johan Pilstedt, CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios. “Well, I guess it’s warranted.”
Pilstedt followed up his post with another saying that the Arrowhead was “talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries”
What happens next for Helldivers 2?
Pilstedt followed today’s news that the Helldivers 2 update would not be going forward by first expressing how impressed he was with the community for its ability to collaborate, before thanking PlayStation for “quickly and effectively making the decision to leave PSN linking optional.”
While the majority of Sony’s other experiments in PC gaming are single player, it is currently unclear whether the decision to leave PSN linking optional in Helldivers will affect other titles. According to Pilstedt, the team knew six months prior to launch that PSN linking would be required at some point, and that the decision to make it optional at launch would only be temporary.
In the meantime, Helldivers 2 is once again available for purchase in the countries where it was pulled.
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