PC players have been enjoying the hell out of Helldivers 2, the 3D update to the team-killing PvE original. In fact PC sales have made up the bulk of the player base, despite the game being published by Sony on PS5 simultaneously. But a new message telling PC users that they’ll need a PlayStation account has some of them feeling less than patriotic for Super Earth.
Requiring a PlayStation account was always the plan, according to the publisher’s post on Steam. “Due to technical issues at the launch of Helldivers 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire.”
Anyone who buys Helldivers 2 after May 6th will be required to sign in to PlayStation Network, in addition to the Steam account they used to purchase the game. Current players will have until June 4th to link their accounts to Sony’s system.
“We understand that while this may be an inconvenience to some of you,” says Sony Interactive Entertainment’s message, “this step will help us to continue to build a community that you are all proud to be a part of.” The company gave no technical reason for requiring the accounts to be linked, as crossplay between PC and PlayStation players has been working fine since the February launch. Helldivers 2 is the only Sony-published PC game that has required a PlayStation Network login.
PC players are, unsurprisingly, not happy. “I don’t have a PlayStation account. I don’t want a play station account. Are you telling me I have to have a PlayStation account?” asks one reply to the announcement on Twitter, with over 2000 likes at the time of writing. Others say they have asked Steam for a refund. “I don’t own a PlayStation, I’m not interested in getting one, so prepare to give me my money back.”
The Steam listing for the ultra-popular game immediately began suffering from negative reviews after the news dropped, as analyst Daniel Ahmad noted on Twitter.
A negative response from the often-prickly PC gamer community was all but inevitable. But I can’t help but think that SOE and Helldivers developer Arrowhead have made their own bed here. Technical issues or not, they set a status quo when the game launched months ago, and allowed it to continue as Helldivers 2 gained popularity across social media.
They could have either allowed it to remain unchanged, or fixed the problem immediately. And the fact that they didn’t indicates that whatever benefit is gained from playing with a PlayStation Network account, it isn’t essential for the actual game.
