Helldivers 2 – Sony has relented (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
After a calamitous few days, Sony has admitted defeat but Helldivers 2 on PC is still unavailable in many countries.
After one of the most epic own goals in recent gaming history, Sony has seen sense, regarding the PC version of Helldivers 2, and is no longer planning to make it a requirement that you have to link your Steam account to PSN in order to play it.
While the requirement had apparently always been planned, developer Arrowhead created a ‘grace period’ where it wasn’t necessary, in order to build up a following for the game. However, they didn’t tell anyone that and the news that a PSN account would become mandatory by June came as a complete shock.
The most obvious problem is that PSN isn’t available in many countries and so Sony pre-emptively pulled the game from those regions. It’s still not back, but presumably it will return over the course of the next 24 hours.
The problems first emerged on Friday and then steadily got worse over the weekend, as the game was removed from sale. As a result, Helldiver 2’s recent review status on Steam fell from positive to ‘overwhelmingly negative.’
It’s currently at ‘mostly negative’ and is likely to creep back up over the course of the next few days. Although to what degree gamers will hold a grudge remains to be seen.
Sony’s unconvincing excuse for the debacle is that it was to prevent online abuse and improve the process for appealing bans. That clearly wasn’t true though, as now Arrowhead has said that it will create new systems within the game to allow for the same thing.
‘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,’ reads a Sony announcement on Twitter.
‘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.’
Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt has taken a strangely blasé attitude to the whole issue, but everyone seems to be blaming Sony rather than him.
‘Firstly, I am impressed by the willpower of the Helldivers 2 community and your ability to collaborate. Secondly, I want to thank our partners and friends at PlayStation for quickly and effectively making the decision to leave PSN linking optional,’ he said on Twitter.
‘We together want to set a new standard for what a live game is, and how developers and community can support each other to create the best game experiences.’
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Everything at the moment suggests that this will end up being a relatively minor impediment to Helldivers 2’s ongoing success, but it’s important to note that removing the requirement for PSN does not apply to other PlayStation games on PC.
It’s still needed on games such as Ghost Of Tsushima and it’s unlikely either that that will be removed or that future games will be handled any differently, as Sony wants to build up a regular audience on PSN and be able to monitor and market to them.
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