The PC players of Helldivers II are angry and have triggered a huge shitstorm against Sony in a very short time.
Events at Sony are currently unfolding rapidly. This is about the flagship title Helldivers II, which has conquered the Steam charts in the last few weeks and months. But overnight, the good reputation of Helldivers II, which they have worked hard to earn over the last few months, is simply gone.
Over 24,000 bad reviews have completely destroyed the ranking! The positioning is from a recommendation to “Mostly negative“ into the bottomless fallen.
The reason for the trouble is a new account requirement from Sony!
Sony is now suddenly requiring all Helldivers II players on the PC to link their PC account with a PSN account in order to continue playing the game on the PC. If you don’t do that, you won’t be able to play Helldivers II anymore.
Sony gave known: “Due to technical issues with the launch of HELLDIVERS 2, we have allowed the requirements for linking Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional.”
“Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and maintaining the security values of PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games. This is our primary means of protecting players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players who engage in this type of behavior. Additionally, players who have been banned have the right to appeal.”
“Therefore, starting May 6th, all new HELLDIVERS 2 players on Steam will need to link their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. Current players on Steam must log in starting May 30th and must have a Steam and PlayStation Network account linked by June 4th.”
“PlayStation Network accounts can be set up for free and easily using this link https://www.playstation.com/support/account/create-account-for-psn/.”
“We understand that this may be an inconvenience for some of you, but this step will help us continue to build a community that you can all be proud of.”
“Thank you for your continued support of HELLDIVERS 2! Sony Interactive Entertainment”
What shouldn’t be a big hassle for many people with a PlayStation in their living room and sounds more like a piece of cake, but in detail it causes a lot of trouble.
Rightly so, as does the Helldivers II director Johan Pilestedt means:
“Ouch, straight into the review,” Pilestedt wrote. “Well, I think it’s justified. I’m sorry to everyone for how this all turned out. I hope we can make amends and regain trust by continuing to provide a great gaming experience.”
The Community Manager “Twinbeard” also clarifiedthat it was Sony’s decision and not that of the development studio to subsequently activate the account requirement.
“First of all, it’s Sony’s decision, not ours.”
[…]
“We always knew this day would come and it’s going just as I expected.”
This new account requirement from Sony caused a lot of trouble for the developers of Arrowhead and resulted in Helldivers II selling over 24,000 overnight bad reviews at steam received – and the negative reviews don’t stop.
The reasons are communicated more than clearly by PC gamers and they are demanding an abolition of the ID link with the PlayStation Network (PSN).
Why all the trouble, you ask?
The account requirement comes months after the release of Helldivers II. Technical problems initially prevented the account from being linked, so it was avoided entirely for months. But that’s over now and the problems are sprouting like weeds!
Previously, the fine print stated that a link to a PSN ID Optional will remain, but Sony secretly changed this small passage of text, but it was caught and screenshots prove the changes “Linking to PSN is optional when playing a PlayStation game on the PC game” to “Some PlayStation games on the PC require a link to PSN.”
The shitstorm has also gone to the heads of some Helldivers II developers and community managers. They made fun of their own fans and PC gamers in Discord funny. Statements such as: “You’ve been meaning to request a refund for a long time!” were recorded. Such “answers” add even more fuel to the current Helldivers II fire!
Now you might think that PC gamers are doing a lot of work and you can just follow the “Account fishing“and should follow Sony’s PSN ID requirement, Microsoft does it no differently with its games and after all it takes less than two minutes to create a PSN ID.
But it gets even worse, because in all countries where the PSN (PlayStation Network) is not available (over 90 countries) there is a legal link to the PSN with Steam not possible.
This means that anyone who has purchased the game Helldivers II for PC via Steam in one of the 90+ countries where PSN is not available will not be able to select their country at all when linking to their PSN ID.
Players who used a VPN tunnel for a solution report that they banned became!
The developers are aware of the region problem and want to work with Sony on a solution. However, there is no detailed information here.
What might seem like an inflated “shitstorm” at first glance, and review bombing is always crap, but it has its justification, at least for the players affected.
The annoyance lies in the details and, above all, the fact that it was possible to play Helldivers II for months without linking an account is now causing frustration with the new requirement.
The anger is understandable mainly for all players who would like to link their account but are unable to do so because there is no PSN in their region and they suddenly can no longer play Helldivers II on the PC.
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