Helldivers 2, which was released in February 2024, was a huge success. People were playing it left and right when it first came out which is definitely no surprise. Thanks to its stunning graphics and action-filled gameplay it captured many people’s attention right from the get go. This quickly led to it becoming the most-sold game in 2024 and even the best-selling game for Sony in most recent years. But thanks the very debatable decision from the publisher to implement a PSN requirement… It has gone from one of the most celebrated multiplayer games earlier this year… To one of the most controversial in recent video game history.
Helldivers 2 & The Forced PSN Sign-in
For those of you who have no idea what Helldivers 2 is and what the hype is all about… Let me give you a quick overview of the game so you can better understand what we’re talking about.
Hellsivers 2 is a multiplayer game that was released for both PC & Playstation. In the game you visit different planets overrun by deadly enemies. Your goal is to try and stop the spreading of the different factions that are invading the galaxy and keep them from reaching your home planet. Currently, you can fight against 2 different types of enemies: The Terminids, which are bug-like creatures that crawl around the surface of the planet, and the Automatons, which are a robot civilization trying to conquer the universe.
It is very similar to extraction shooters. But instead of hopping into one pvp round after another, you fight against an AI instead. You dive onto the planets to solve different kinds of mission. You can shoot the attackers with your own guns or even use your spaceship to nuke rather large parts of the lands to kill those pesky invaders. After you’re done you return back to the ship which acts as your HUB. There you can upgrade your ship and prepare for the next round.
Sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? But what could possibly ruin a game like that? It’s a rather simple and yet very stupid answer: A forced PSN sign-in requirement.
Why People React So Negatively
On that note, we want to emphasize that this requirement does NOT come from the developers Arrowhead Game Studios themselves but from none other than Sony Entertainment. Arrowhead is standing on its communities side and tries to negotiate with Sony to try reverse the wrongs. One of the community managers on their Discord assured the players that the discussions between the two are still ongoing. But why was it taken so negatively in the first place?
To be able to sign in with a PSN account has always been an available option to the players. But it was definitely not a requirement before this announcement. Making a PSN account is completely free and shouldn’t take longer than a couple of minutes to set up. So why do people react so negatively about the PSN sign-in requirement? If it’s that quick and easy for people to create a new Playstation Network account and jump right back into the game… It should be fine, right? But it’s not. Because not everyone can access PSN.
Only 73 countries out of the almost 200 in the world support PSN. So if you’re unlucky and are not living in any of them… It means that all of a sudden you are not eligible anymore to play Helldivers 2 anymore. So of course if you’ve paid money for a game and put in hundreds of hours into it only to be completely cut off from the system… Wouldn’t that make anyone angry in one way or another? But what can you do if that’s the case for you?
Steams Reaction & Consequences
With currently over 200 thousand negative reviews on Steam, Helldivers 2 took a rather hefty blow to its image after they announced that from now on you are required to sign in to the Playstation Network in order to play the game.
As of now, Steam is giving people refunds on the game for people living in the affected countries. Even peoples that have played hundreds of hours instead of their usual 2hr time limit are elegible for a refund. So if you are one of the unlucky people not being able to play anymore due to those restrictions, at least you can get your money back and maybe invest in something new. Some people also suggest you can work around it by signing up to PSN over another country but sadly this is against the PSN terms of service, so be mindful of the consequences this might bring.
So far, Steam has also taken the game from the store in over 150 countries where PSN is not available for players so people won’t spend money on an unplayable game. Even if Sony should change their policy to allow people to play without a PSN account again in the future, their image and especially their reviews on Steam are going to be forever damaged.
With so many negative reviews because of the PSN sign-in requirement… Helldivers 2 will forever be branded with mixed reviews on their Steam page. While some might argue that Helldivers 2 already hit the most sold game in 2024 and also has become one of the most sold games of all time for Sony, new players are probably going to shy away from buying it. So was this really worth it?
One Wrong Move And Everything Is Over
Games as they are nowadays are very fast-paced. The hype stays for a few months and then slowly dies off until the next big game comes along. Just like that, a single piece of rice can tip the balance in the wrong direction.
It’s only a speculation, why Sony would go through with such an unusual decision. Maybe it was to protect the players as they claim? Or maybe they simply tried to get more people onto the PSN network since the biggest part of the Hellsdiver 2 player base is on PC? Whatever their intentions might have been, the damage is done and irreversible.
But somehow more and more games are making very questionable decisions when it comes to their policies. Be it pay-to-win microtransactions, way too overpriced collectors editions or hiding features behind pay-walls to earn some extra cash. The PSN sign-in requirement is no exception. Instead of allowing more people to play the game, they chose to forcefully limit the accessibility for people… And I doubt that something so big was simply ‘overlooked’ during the discussions. I really feel bad for Arrowhead who genuinely wanted to make a really good and fun game for their community only to be screwed over by a big publisher like Sony Entertainment.
Things Could Have Gone Differently
Nowadays, more and more games make it possible to play cross-platforms to extend their player base which is especially beneficial for multiplayer games. Not only does it shorten waiting times on queues but it also helps to populate a game even more. Just look at FF14 which has supported multiple platforms for years and reached back to PS3 times. So being forced to buy a certain system is getting more and more rare nowadays.
Now the thing is, things wouldn’t necessarily turn out this bad if they had taken a few measurements in advance. For one thing, if this really was for the players safety… Why wasn’t this PSN forced sign-in a requirement from the very beginning? If that would have been the case, that the game was a PSN account exclusive from the start, people wouldn’t have been outraged like this. Of course, there would have been discussions and complaints about exclusivity like always but definitely not to this extent.
People had unlimited access to the game and even put money & time into the game… And this is what they get? Blocked out of the game with them being completely innocent and there is nothing they can do about it except to demonstrate.
Furthermore, they could have done more research, figured out their demographics and even conducted a survey on that matter before coming up with a final decision. It is sad to see another game being ruined just because people thought something that could be a ‘good idea’. Arrowhead has put their heart and soul into Helldivers 2. No studio deserves to be treated like this by a publisher they trusted, no matter the reason.
While this decision can be reversed in the future, it will always leave a bad aftertaste from now on. Players left the game, the negative reviews on Steam will continue to exist and people will probably think twice about buying a game from Sony Entertainment. They learned this lesson the hard way and maybe it is also going to be a wake-up call for other publishers… That both the studios and their player base are not going to sit idly by when you mess with them.
If you enjoyed our article about Helldivers 2 and the trouble they ran into with their PSN sign-in requirement, you might also be interested in this one:
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