Sony PlayStation Reverses Course: No Longer Mandating PSN Account Linking for Helldivers 2 on Steam

Sony PlayStation announced that they are no longer pushing through with implementing the requirement of linking a PSN account to your Steam account in order to play 4-player co-op shooter Helldivers 2. This was due to major backlash from the Helldivers community when it was announced back in May 3, 2024.

Helldivers fans -- we’ve heard your feedback on the Helldivers 2 account linking update. The May 6 update, which would have required Steam and PlayStation Network account linking for new players and for current players beginning May 30, will not be moving forward.

We’re still…

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 6, 2024

This comes after the game received over 200K negative reviews on Steam ever since they announced the requirement would take effect this month to both new and current players.

This latest Helldivers 2 controversy concerned many players for various reasons. For one, this was implemented once again two months after the game was released, which is an inconvenience to many as the majority of those playing on Steam are mainly PC players.

The requirement was initially planned at launch and was a requirement by Sony the publisher of Helldivers 2, but the developer decided to disable the requirement in the first few days of release as the game was experiencing various server issues and the growing popularity of the game prolonged its server issues. The PSN requirement was also mentioned in the game’s storefront back in February.

But the requirement posed bigger problems for the community. It was then realized that this requirement is more severe for a good amount of players as it forces users to create PSN accounts even though they can’t in their country. Suppose a player chooses to create an account in a different region that Sony supports. In that case, that’s technically breaking Sony’s Terms of Service, making you prone to account termination if Sony wishes to do so.

It was an emotional few days yet again for Helldivers 2 players, but it looks like the community voices are being heard by Sony. It seemed like it was getting worse as over the weekend, countries not supported by PSN was blocked from buying Helldivers 2. The ability to not buy the game has not been reverted after the announcement from PlayStation was made, and they will likely revert this as well. We will update this post once it is changed.

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