Earlier this week, Helldivers 2 players on PC were told they would soon have to link their Steam account to their PlayStation Network (PSN) account. Two days later and the game has received 100,000 new negative reviews on Steam.
Moreover, the developers at Arrowhead have released several statements to say that they are on the side of the players.
“Ouch, on the viewing account,” he tweeted Johan Pilestedt, CEO and creative director of Arrowhead game Studio. “Well, I guess it’s warranted. We’re sorry to everyone for how this all turned out. I hope we can fix it and restore trust by continuing to deliver great gaming experiences. I just want to make great games!”
When Pilestedt made this comment yesterday, Helldivers 2 still had a “Mostly Positive” user review rating on Steam and a “Mixed” rating based only on reviews from the past two weeks. As of this writing, the overall rating is now Mixed – showing only 59% positive reviews – and recent reviews are Mostly Negative.
Internal discussions about the forced linking change are ongoing, and while I can’t reveal the details, the response from our development teams has been overwhelmingly negative, and we’re looking for better options,” Arrowhead community manager Spitz wrote on the Helldivers Discord. Shared by Reddit user Navar4477).
Spitz also said that the decision and announcement was made by Sony, not Arrowhead.
Players object to the requirement to link their PSN accounts for a number of reasons, from basic concerns to more general data collection and privacy concerns. The change is of particular concern to players in regions where it is not possible to sign up for a PSN account. A previous comment from Arrowhead suggested that even players should register with PSN for a region other than their own, but that would actually violate Sony’s own terms of service.
“Unless a better solution is provided for players in regions without PSN coverage, I am confident that we will not make this requirement mandatory for those players,” Spitz said. “We will not force people to violate the Sony TOS or not play the game.”
Sony has brought more and more of its games to PC in recent years, usually years after the original console exclusive release. Helldivers 2 is a little different because they publish the game and it was developed by a third party studio they don’t own and released simultaneously on PC and PlayStation platforms. The cross-platform release is part of why it’s such a huge success; this reported It is the seventh highest-grossing Sony-published game of all time, accounting for more than half of PC sales. It’s also just a great game.
All of this makes it a real big dumb shame that the experience is tainted by an unnecessary account requirement for players.