GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Sony doubles down, removing Helldivers 2 from sale in 177 countries and territories that can’t access PSN while Arrowhead CEO says ‘I don’t have the final say’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesThird Person ShooterHelldivers 2Sony doubles down, removing Helldivers 2 from sale in 177 countries and territories that can’t access PSN while Arrowhead CEO says ‘I don’t have the final say’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Arrowhead Games)
Update:Sony has now backed down on its demand that Helldivers 2 players log into a PSN account.
Even as members of Helldivers studio Arrowhead Games say that discussions around Sony’scontroversial PlayStation Network sign in requirementfor Helldivers 2 on PC are still ongoing, it looks like the publisher is doubling down on the move, halting sales of the game in countries where it doesn’t offer the service.
In theory, Helldivers 2 was always supposed to require players to sign into the PlayStation Network in game, but this was not required at launch due to network infrastructure limitations (remember Helldivers 2’searly server woes?). Two days ago, Sony announced that it would begin enforcing that requirement in a month-long rollout.
The Steam review riot against the move continues unabated, with over 211 thousand negative recent reviews, bringing the former people’s champion of 2024 to overall “Mixed” status on the platform. Almost 130 thousand of those new negative reviews were in the past day alone—when I last checked in on Helldivers 2 yesterday, we were sitting at 84 thousand.Eurogameralso reports that some players are even receiving refunds from Steam despite vastly exceeding the platform’s usual 2-hour window.
And Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead might just be one of the biggest victims of the situation, having its trend setting, GOTY shortlist labor of love get proverbially drawn and quartered due to myopic Sony decision making. “We are talking solutions with Sony, especially in non-PSN countries,” Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedtwrote on Twitterearlier today. “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.”
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Sony has been holding its hand to a hot stove for about three days now, all in the name of capturing new emails and users into its PSN ecosystem, and while I’m just a simple country games journalist, the smart move would probably be to stop right about now. What’s more,notmaking this change would take less effort: just keep Helldivers 2 running as it has for the past four months.
Whether Sony eventually realizes this or not, it may already be too late. Similar to how Tarkov’s$250 mode controversywas allowed to burn uncontrolled for six days, potentially permanently souring its community and driving them to alternatives like Grey Zone Warfare, Sony and Helldivers 2 have sustained calamitous reputational damage over this sign in debacle. The thing is, there’s just nothing out there quite like Helldivers 2, which makes the prospect of its demise or diminishing all the sadder.
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