It has been a very rough last few days for members of the Helldivers 2 PC gaming community on Steam. The hit third-person sci-fi shooter from developer Arrowhead Game Studios and publisher Sony was just hours away from forcing new players to link to a PlayStation Network account to their Steam account so they could play the game starting today.
Indeed, the day before that deadline, Helldivers 2 was removed from sale on Steam in 177 countries where those players were barred from establishing a PSN account.
Thankfully, cooler and smarter heads have prevailed in this incident. In a post on the official PlayStation X (formerly Twitter) account, Sony has backed down and now says its plans to make Helldivers 2 Steam players link to a PSN account to play the game “will not be moving forward.”
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 message added:
We’re still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable. Thanks again for your continued support of Helldivers 2 and we’ll keep you updated on future plans.
Sony’s post does sound like they won’t be revisiting this particular issue down the road so we think this case can be considered closed.
Helldivers 2 PC players started review-bombing the game on its Steam page soon after Sony announced its PSN linking plans. It remains to be seen if Sony’s turnaround on this issue will bring back all those players who made those review comments. As of this writing, the game’s developer Arrowhead, and its vocal and supportive CEO Johan Pilestedt have yet to comment on Sony’s PSN account reversal.