Helldivers 2 has now been delisted in 177 regions on Steam, following Sony’s announcement that a linked PSN account will become a requirement for the co-op shooter, and the community backlash that this has sparked.
The Steam listing for Helldivers 2 was updated overnight to remove the option to buy the game in 177 regions, which includes any region or country where PlayStation Network is not supported by Sony – bizarrely, this includes countries like Egypt where Sony had PS5 launch events. It’s not clear whether Valve or Sony has taken this move, though we’d guess it’s the former. Either way, the action ensures that gamers that will be unable to comply with a mandatory PSN account will not be able to purchase the game.
Linked PSN accounts will become a requirement for new Helldivers 2 players on PC from tomorrow, 6th May, while existing players will start to be forced to attach accounts by 4th June.
For their part, developer Arrowhead has stated quite clearly that this is a policy being put in place by Sony, the game’s publisher, and in their Discord said that they would try to ensure that players in regions without PSN would not be blocked from playing the game.
There’s also been reports of users successfully requesting refunds via Steam, regardless of whether they are in an affected country, as Valve’s customer services team seem to view this as effectively being a change to the terms of service.
Of course, the greatest irony to all of this is that Helldivers 2 is a game that explicitly trained the community in the art of coordinated warfare, rallying round single objectives to complete Major Orders on the galactic map. Sony has simply put the target on their own back, and the “game” has taken on a real world element that has seen the community very vocally, very loudly and already quite effectively push back against the PSN requirement. The game has gone from having positive reviews on Steam to ‘mixed’ in all-time metric, and ‘mostly negative’ for the recent reviews.
Sony will make linked PSN accounts a requirement for their PC games in future, as they seek to combine their PC sales successes with their console gaming audience – something they’ll then be able to tout during quarterly reports. Ghost of Tsushima will launch for PC later this month with the first iteration of a PSN overlay that will bring friends lists, trophies and more to PC for the first time. However, Helldivers 2 doesn’t have that integration, and outside of cross-play (which uses generated codes for finding friends between PS5 and PC) lacks features like cross-progression that might make a PSN account feel like a worthwhile addition to PC players.
Source: SteamDB, Reddit
