Helldivers 2 PC players are furious over this controversial change

By Tomas Franzese May 3, 2024

A Helldivers 2 player fires a laser canon. — Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Helldivers 2, February’s surprise multiplayer hit from Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony Interactive Entertainment, is now getting bombarded with negative reviews on Steam. That’s because the game will soon require all PC players to link their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account.

Anyone who plays Helldivers 2 for the first time after May 6 will have to link a PlayStation Network account to Steam. Those who already own the game will also be required to do so by June 4 or they will no longer be able to access the game.

“Due to technical issues at the launch of Helldivers 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire,” a Steam post that went live Thursday night revealed. “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. This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behavior. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal.”

Those reasons for this post-launch account linking change weren’t good enough for players on PC, a platform where Helldivers 2 has been extremely succcessful. As a result, an influx of negative reviews has appeared on Steam deriding this incoming change. One top negative review jokes that “the automatons have taken over Sony Headquarters.” Players are equally as angry on social media platforms like X.

In response to the backlash, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt pointed players to a PlayStation Support page and said to reach out to them with any further questions. As such, we still don’t know if they’ll reverse course on the account linking requirement; if they don’t and you’re playing Helldivers 2 through Steam, then play as much of it as you can until this change takes effect in June.

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Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

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