Helldivers 2 Bombs on Steam Following PSN Linking Requirement Announcement

Helldivers 2 was review-bombed on Steam, dropping the highly popular shooter game down to a "mixed" rating after Sony announced that it will be required to link a PSN account to Valve's platform in order to continue playing the game.

In response to the widespread negative feedback to the latest development, Arrowhead CEO Johaan Pilstedt released a statement. In it, he apologized for what had just happened, saying that he just wanted to "make great games."

Helldivers 2 PSN Linking Requirement

Helldivers 2 Bombs on Steam Following PSN Linking Requirement Announcement — The CEO of Arrowhead Studios apologized to disgruntled Helldivers 2 players after Sony announced that they will be required to link PSN accounts to Steam in order to continue playing the game.
(Photo : Arrowhead Game Studios / Screenshot taken from Steam)

The controversy comes after Sony announced that new Helldivers 2 PC players will first have to link their Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account starting in May. Many players took to social media to vent their frustrations and make threats.

These include quitting the game altogether, demanding refunds, and flooding Helldivers 2 with negative review scores. The Steam customer review tab of the game showed that it had received thousands of negative reviews following Sony's PSN linking announcement, according to IGN.

This led to Pilestedt taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to say that the development was warranted and apologized to disgruntled players. He added that he hoped they could make it up to Helldivers 2 fans by providing a great gaming experience.

The Arrowhead CEO's apology comes after a prior post on X where he directed complaining players to PlayStation Support if they had any questions about linking accounts. On the other hand, Sony justified its new requirement by saying that it is a safety and security matter.

The company also said that account linking "plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games."

So far, it remains unclear how the new linking requirement will affect players in regions that do not have access to the PlayStation Network, because they might not be able to play the game at all, said GamesRadar.

The community manager of the Helldivers 2 Discord, Thomas "Twinbeard" Petersson said that they are not yet sure what the new rule changes mean for players in areas without access to PSN.

Widespread Negative Reviews

In its update, Sony said that they understand how disappointing the new linking requirements could be for many players. However, it noted that it is a step that will help the company continue to build a community that players will be proud to be a part of.

Despite Sony's claim that the PSN linking requirement is a safety and security concern, the platform does not have an impenetrable defense. In April 2011, the PlayStation Network was fully and famously hacked.

That incident caused 77 million users' names, addresses, emails, birthdays, passwords, and logins to be compromised. Sony Online Entertainment had also been the victim of a separate attack while PSN was down at the time.

The latter incident exposed millions more others and thousands of credit card numbers. It wasn't until 26 days later that PSN came partially back online and fully online two weeks later. It included a complimentary year of identity protection and Welcome Back packages for subscribers, according to ArsTechnica.