Philippines and Other PSN Unsupported Countries Blocked from Helldivers 2 Purchase on Steam

Update (5/6/2024): Sony PlayStation has announced on Twitter/X that they will no longer push through with requiring players to link a PSN account to their Steam account to play Helldivers 2.

So far, countries that PSN does not support are still blocked from purchasing the game after the announcement.

The Helldivers 2 controversy has gone from bad to worse within days as the 4-player co-op shooter can no longer be purchased on Steam in countries that do not have PlayStation Network support (PSN). I checked if I can purchase the game here in the Philippines and true enough, the option to purchase the game wasn’t available.

This is because Sony Interactive Entertainment will be requiring old and new players in Steam to link their PSN account with their Steam account to play Helldivers 2. On May 3, new players of the game will be greeted with a process to link their PSN to their Steam account when they boot the game for the first time. On May 30, existing players will be greeted with the requirement to link their PSN account to their Steam account before they can continue playing.

If you don’t have a PSN account, you’ll have to create one, which is one of the reasons why many are not happy with the change and why countries like the Philippines can no longer purchase the game as there is no PSN support in these countries.

Here is the full list of countries/regions that do not have PSN support and can no longer purchase Helldivers 2 as of May 5, 2024.

• Afghanistan

• Antigua and Barbuda

• Anguilla

• Albania

• Armenia

• Netherlands Antilles

• Angola

• Antarctica

• American Samoa

• Aruba

• Åland Islands

• Azerbaijan

• Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Barbados

• Bangladesh

• Burkina Faso

• Burundi

• Benin

• Saint Barthélemy

• Bermuda

• Brunei Darussalam

• Bonaire/Sint Eustatius/Saba

• Bahamas

• Bhutan

• Bouvet Island

• Botswana

• Belarus

• Belize

• Cocos (Keeling) Islands

• Democratic Republic of the Congo

• Central African Republic

• Congo

• Côte d'Ivoire

• Cook Islands

• Cameroon

• Cuba

• Cabo Verde

• Curaçao

• Christmas Island

• Djibouti

• Dominica

• Dominican Republic

• Algeria

• Egypt

• Western Sahara

• Eritrea

• Ethiopia

• Fiji

• Falkland Islands (Malvinas)

• Federated States of Micronesia

• Faroe Islands

• Gabon

• Grenada

• Georgia

• French Guiana

• Guernsey

• Ghana

• Gibraltar

• Greenland

• Gambia

• Guinea

• Guadeloupe

• Equatorial Guinea

• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

• Guam

• Guinea-Bissau

• Guyana

• Heard Island and McDonald Islands

• Haiti

• Isle of Man

• British Indian Ocean Territory

• Iraq

• Islamic Republic of Iran

• Jersey

• Jamaica

• Jordan

• Kenya

• Kyrgyzstan

• Cambodia

• Kiribati

• Comoros

• Saint Kitts and Nevis

• Democratic People's Republic of Korea

• Cayman Islands

• Kazakhstan

• Lao People's Democratic Republic

• Saint Lucia

• Sri Lanka

• Liberia

• Lesotho

• Libya

• Morocco

• Monaco

• Republic of Moldova

• Montenegro

• Saint Martin

• Madagascar

• Marshall Islands

• North Macedonia

• Mali

• Myanmar

• Mongolia

• Macao

• Northern Mariana Islands

• Martinique

• Mauritania

• Montserrat

• Mauritius

• Maldives

• Malawi

• Mozambique

• Namibia

• New Caledonia

• Niger

• Norfolk Island

• Nigeria

• Nepal

• Nauru

• Niue

• French Polynesia

• Papua New Guinea

• Philippines

• Pakistan

• Saint Pierre and Miquelon

• Pitcairn

• Puerto Rico

• State of Palestine

• Palau

• Réunion

• Serbia

• Rwanda

• Solomon Islands

• Seychelles

• Sudan

• Saint Helena/Ascension/Tristan da Cunha

• Svalbard and Jan Mayen

• Sierra Leone

• San Marino

• Senegal

• Somalia

• Suriname

• South Sudan

• Sao Tome and Principe

• Sint Maarten (Dutch part)

• Syrian Arab Republic

• Eswatini

• Turks and Caicos Islands

• Chad

• French Southern Territories

• Togo

• Tajikistan

• Tokelau

• Timor-Leste

• Turkmenistan

• Tunisia

• Tonga

• Trinidad and Tobago

• Tuvalu

• United Republic of Tanzania

• Uganda

• United States Minor Outlying Islands

• Uzbekistan

• Holy See

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

• Venezuela

• British Virgin Islands

• U.S. Virgin Islands

• Viet Nam

• Vanuatu

• Wallis and Futuna

• Samoa

• Yemen

• Mayotte

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe

This was silently changed and there was no formal announcement revealing that those without PSN support will no longer be able to purchase the game. There is also no confirmation if this is temporary.

But why not make a PSN account from a different region?

This is possible as those in countries that do not have PSN support can set their region to regions that do have support. For those in the Philippines, common choices for us are usually the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, or even Europe.

This has been the case for years, and this method breaks Sony’s Terms of Service, as we are using false information to create these accounts. Legally, they can terminate all accounts that do this, but this hasn’t happened since the PS3 days, at least for those living in the Philippines.

The announcement of requiring players to link their PSN accounts was made on May 3, and since then Helldivers 2 has received over 127,000 negative reviews, putting recent reviews for the game from ‘Greatly Positive’ to ‘Mostly Negative’. Helldivers 2’s overall review rating went from ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ to ‘Mixed’ in just days.

It’s Sony’s decision, not Arrowhead Games Studios

It’s a losing situation for everyone involved, and the decision to enforce this requirement was made by Sony, not Helldivers 2’s developer Arrowhead Games Studios. Discord discussions between the developers and their playerbase revealed that “the response from the dev teams has been pretty universally negative” regarding the PSN requirement, and that internal discussions are currently ongoing.

The PSN linking requirement isn’t something that was placed all of a sudden as this was mentioned and in place at launch but was disabled to help alleviate the server issues the game was experiencing due to the game’s growing popularity. It was just brought back as a requirement two months after the game’s launch.

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