Helldivers 2, which has gained popularity since the beginning of this year, can no longer be purchased on PC due to Steam in many countries following the announcement that a PlayStation Network account will be required for players. The problem is that PSN works in a relatively small number of countries. The situation has resulted in Helldivers 2 being unavailable in more than 170 regions, according to SteamDB. Steam also returns money for its purchase regardless of the time in the game.
On April 3, Helldivers 2 publisher Sony Interactive announced on the Steam blog that Helldivers 2 PC players will soon need to sign up for a PlayStation Network account (if they don’t already have one) in order to continue playing the game. The company explains that technical problems during the game’s launch forced the publisher to make the Steam PSN link optional. However, the grace period will soon end and PSN will become mandatory from Monday.
The player community didn’t like the news too much: Helldivers 2’s ratings on Steam plummeted. As of now, the game has more than 216 thousand strongly negative reviews (17%) and almost 500 thousand mixed (49%).
Sony’s condition effectively closes the game to a significant number of users, or forces them to violate the company’s licensing terms. A regional ban on Steam makes it impossible to use the game and PSN via a VPN.
“Yes, I was completely unaware of how many countries do not have the ability to create a PSN account when I made that statement. We have absolutely no intention of forcing people to violate Sony’s terms of use or simply not play the game if they are in a restricted region. We need to find a better solution,” the game’s community manager wrote on Discord. CEO of game developer Arrowhead Jean Pilestedt apologized to users for Sony’s decision.
Meanwhile the site DSOG “unearthed” that Sony, without an announcement, changed the conditions for the release of its games on PC. In 2022, Sony said PC gamers won’t need to sign in to the PlayStation Network. The company has made it clear that on PC, logging into PSN is not a mandatory choice. This information is taken from Sony PlayStation Network support pages in 2022.
Later Sony quietly changed this page. It now says that for some PlayStation games you may have to connect to a PSN account, which is a stark contrast to the previous text.
Earlier it became known that Ghost of Tsushima will not require a PSN account for an individual campaign on PC. However, you will still need an account for co-op mode.
Peak online Helldivers 2 on Steam reached almost 460 thousand concurrent players – the shooter entered the top 20 of all time
Sources: Wccftech, VGC, DSOG, Insider Gaming, GamesRadar
