The Daily Populous Tuesday May 7th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by twistedvoxel.com and submitted by AliTVBG

After Sony confirmed that the decision to make PSN account mandatory for Helldivers 2 will be reversed, the community has been happy.

Helldivers 2 community went through a lot of drama once it was revealed that Sony would make it mandatory to require a PSN account to play the game. Since then, they have reversed the discussion that was supposed to be a part of the new update on May 6th, and this has led many of the fans to reverse their decision of giving it a negative review.

What Was Wrong With Helldivers 2 PSN Requirements?

When Helldivers 2 launched in February, the developers had already confirmed that PSN account linking would be mandatory for the game to offer functional online multiplayer. Due to the immense popularity of the game and technical issues including server costs, they had to ditch the idea and postpone it until a time when they could offer stable servers.

This happened earlier in May when they announced that Helldivers 2 would be getting an update that would make it mandatory to link PSN accounts. If you didn’t have a PSN account, you would be required to make one. Except, there was a problem with this implementation.

Helldivers 2 was being sold in the majority of the countries where there was no official support or existence of PSN, and Sony was encouraging players to break their terms and services and make an account outside of their region/country. This prompted Steam to remove the game from the regions where PSN was not supported, and players in these regions were unable to play a game that they bought making it possible for them to refund it.

How Is The Community Reacting To The News

Helldivers 2 won’t force PSN account going forward according to a statement shared by Sony. “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 the statement. You can get it in full on X (formerly Twitter).

The community is quite happy with this news and the Helldivers 2 subreddit has pinned posts now that are encouraging anyone who has provided a negative review of the game to turn it into a positive one. Since this was the biggest issue for most players, it might lead to a reversal of the overly negative reviews that hammered the game since the announcement was made earlier before the weekend.

As for the game being returned on Steam in countries where it was removed, that will also likely follow soon now that the PSN account requirement is no longer mandatory for it to function.

OpT1mUs on May 6th, 2024 at 19:52 UTC »

I mean, I still can't buy the game. The ban on 170 regions or w/e is still a thing.

Carcharis on May 6th, 2024 at 17:48 UTC »

I just changed mine but this shouldn’t happen. You’ll just piss off the pc community again. If WH3 can come back then this game will definitely rebound

TheGoldenMonkey on May 6th, 2024 at 17:30 UTC »

This is a weird situation because some people will say "keep it up to teach Sony a lesson" while others will remove theirs out of respect for the devs.

I highly doubt the more volatile group of players will remove their reviews, but some of the community have pointed out that leaving the initial review calling out Sony's actions but amending their reviews to recommended with positive aspects of the game might be a good idea.

Unfortunately, the reputation of the game might take a hit due to Sony's actions regardless of whether people delete, change, or amend their reviews.

Let's hope enough people care about the game and the devs to find a happy medium.