Helldivers 2 will no longer require PSN log-in after fan uproar blew over through the weekend.
On Twitter, PlayStation shared this message on their official account:
“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 learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable. Thanks again for your continued support of Helldivers 2 and we’ll keep you updated on future plans.”
This is the culmination of an online furor over the requirement that boiled over the weekend. Last week, Sony revealed that they will enforce the requirement to log in with a PSN account to play the game on Steam. Sony intended this requirement from when the game launched, but waived it for the first few months because I ran into technical issues.
Now, as it’s become clear now, a lot of the people who bought and played Helldivers 2 became open to it because they were expecting to just play the game as is. As a result, the game got massively downvoted on Steam user reviews, to the point that the game reception has shifted from positive to mixed.
Some fans rightly pointed out that they won’t be able to play the game now after buying it, because their country doesn’t have PSN. Sony’s response to this has been to delist Helldivers 2 on these countries. As recorded on SteamDB, you can see the countries where Helldivers 2 was delisted and cross reference it with the countries that don’t have PSN.
Subsequently, Steam gave out refunds to Helldivers 2 buyers, even after they played the game more than 2 hours. It seemed that they also took these refund requests whether the game was delisted in their region or not.
Now, in spite of Sony’s about face, Helldivers 2 was still delisted on the countries where PSN is unavailable. We will have to wait and see how Sony will resolve this issue, and the bigger issues around it moving forward.
The point of the PSN sign in was security. Helldivers 2 runs on Sony’s servers, notorious for getting hacked. Sony will still be responsible if, for example, bad actors enter these servers, to steal user data, or to hack the game and ruin it for everyone. Some gamers claim that nobody would want to cheat on Helldivers 2, but let’s not disregard other malicious actions. Someone could take the servers down and/or leave malicious messages just to mess with the players, for example.
While Sony is more notorious here, Valve is also vulnerable to hackers, with an attack being reported as recently as last October. This is the reason other game companies require third party sign ins and anti-cheat as preconditions to playing their games. This chapter may have ended, but the story may not be over quite yet.
