Sony reverses plan to enforce PSN accounts in Helldivers 2

The community at large turned against Sony over the weekend, after it was announced that PSN accounts would soon be enforced in the PC version of Helldivers 2. While creating a free account sounds easy at first, it quickly came to light that the game had been sold to thousands of players living in countries where PSN is not available, essentially locking those people out of the game. This sparked a wave of controversy, with hundreds of thousands of negative reviews hitting the Steam Store page. Now, Sony has walked back the update.

The Helldivers 2 community has once again banded together to achieve a common goal. This time, the enemy of democracy was none other than the game's publisher after removing the game from sale in over 170 countries, effectively shattering the player base Arrowhead had worked so hard to build in recent years. The team at Arrowhead wasn't particularly pleased with this move either, especially after learning that PSN is  available in less than 70 countries. This turned into nothing short of a PR crisis for Sony and Arrowhead over the weekend, with over 200,000 negative reviews being posted, along with non stop complaints across social media.

To show just how much of a disaster this truly ended up being, I think it is worth noting that Sony's official response came at 5AM in the morning. Clearly, some emergency meetings were being held yesterday. If things went ahead as planned, then it is unlikely that Helldivers 2 would have recovered. The move would have also cost a ton of money in refunds, which I think is a primary motivating factor here for reversing the decision.

Here is Sony's response to the situation in full, including the announcement that a PSN account will remain optional for Helldivers 2:

“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 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.”

As a result of this, the positive reviews for Helldivers 2 are starting to return to Steam, with most of them pointing out the reversal of the decision. Given how quickly the community banded together to tank the game's rating, we will no doubt see it bounce back pretty quickly as well.

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KitGuru Says: Democracy has truly prevailed here. Players made their voices heard and got the powers that be to reverse a crucial decision. PSN account linking will no doubt be required for other PlayStation PC titles in the future, but that wasn't the main issue here. The primary problem with the plan for Helldivers 2 was the fact that the game had already been sold to players in countries where making a PSN account is not possible without risking a ban for violating ToS. 

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