Sony dropped an announcement post that stated that Steam or PC players will have to connect their profiles to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account, a requirement that had been “temporarily optional” is now, mandatory.
“That grace period will now expire,” Sony said. Needless to say, this news did not go down well, and instantly sparked a lot of debate, especially among PC players. According to the announcement, as of May 6th, all the new Steam players accessing the game will have to link their Steam account to a PSN account.
However, the current players will see the mandatory login from May 30th, 2024. The concern centering around this debate isn’t just about a mere account, but the issues the players have been bringing up are much more complex and need to be answered.
PlayStation Network Account will be Mandatory, Even for Helldivers 2 Steam Players
The announcement released by Sony, covered almost everything related to the PSN account creation and connection, however, the reason behind this forceful requirement was concealed under the statement “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.”
As one would expect, a good chunk of Helldivers 2 fans were furious about this abrupt change. “Sounds very anti-democratic,” a Reddit user wrote under the thread dedicated to this current topic. The announcement also stated that these accounts have to be linked by June 4th and also attached the link to create this free account.
Some enraged players have been filing for a refund over this issue and there have also been numerous negative reviews and comments posted on Steam. This ongoing debate started generating more buzz once players pointed out that some regions don’t have PlayStation Network and can’t set up their accounts.
This concern, however, was picked up by Thomas Petersson, an Arrowhead community manager, in the Helldivers 2 Discord server and all he said was that Arrowhead would soon address this issue.
Considering that the Helldivers 2 player base predominantly consists of PC players, Sony might have to take a step back and reconsider the implementation of the requirements they mentioned in their post. Will they be able to get a hold over the ongoing situation or could this possibly lead to the downfall of Helldivers 2?
Speaking of controlling a frantic situation, Johaan Pilstedt, the CEO of Arrowhead, took to Twitter to apologize, for well, everything, “Sorry everyone for how this all transpired.” He wrote.
The reviews on Steam quickly dropped from “Mostly Positive” to “Mixed” after the announcement was released, players did not hesitate to voice their opinions on this topic, and judging from Pilstedt’s tweet and the strain of negative comments and reviews, the developers team seems quite disturbed about how this account-linking situation has exploded.
“I understand that linking accounts and signing up for additional services may not be something that some users would like to do and that needs to be respected.” Johaan Pilstedt wrote in another tweet, “While the steam page has always shown the requirements on the game page, I wish we had been more clear with the long term intent to not disappoint any of the divers out there.”
Apart from the heart-felt apology, Pilstedt’s response to a tweet confirmed that the team is also actively working out some “solutions on how to get around the country drop down menu if your country isn’t listed.“
With regards to all the other concerns, all Helldivers 2 fans can do right now is wait for the developers to share some more details surrounding this topic. Until then, find out how you can get the Anti-Materiel Rifle and learn how to kill Flying Bugs.
