Sony will start requiring Helldivers 2 players to link their Steam account to the PlayStation Network (PSN) by June 4, 2024, or else they won’t be able to play Helldivers 2. The company announced on Steam that it’s making the account linking requirement to PSN mandatory after the expiration of the grace period it set up when Helldivers 2 encountered technical issues during its launch.
“This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behavior,” Sony said in its post. “It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal.”
This move didn’t sit well with the Helldivers 2’s player base. Although the game received mostly positive feedback since its launch on February 8, it received a staggering 36,000 negative reviews on the announcement day. At the time of writing, Helldivers 2 has a ‘Mostly Negative’ rating on Steam.
Most players’ biggest concern is the security of the PlayStation Network—or lack thereof. The company has been a victim of several high-profile hacks in recent history. In 2011 alone, Sony was hacked three separate times, with Sony Online Entertainment, the PlayStation Network, and Sony Pictures suffering data breaches that year.
We cannot forget the sensational Sony hack in 2014, allegedly by North Korea because of James Franco’s and Seth Rogen’s The Interview. Sony was hacked again in 2023, with Sony Interactive Entertainment falling victim to a ransomware attack and exposing the data of thousands of its employees. All in all, millions of customers were affected by these hacks, putting their information at risk.
This history does not bring confidence to Sony’s security measures. That’s why many players saw the irony when Sony said, “Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games.”
While this change angered many Helldivers 2 players, others pointed out that this issue would blow over despite the harsh reaction, as many will likely sign up for a PSN account and continue playing anyway, especially as creating one is free. Another player pointed out on Reddit that negative reviews sometimes don’t do much, especially for mainstream games, citing the Call of Duty franchise. For example, despite mainly getting negative reviews on Steam at launch, Call of Duty Modern Warfare III still made number two on the list of best-selling games in the U.S. for 2023.
Sony hasn’t yet responded to the massive backlash on its planned change, but Arrowhead CEO and Helldivers 2 Creative Director Jonah Pilestedt apologized on X for how the change happened. However, it’s unclear if the adverse reaction by its player base will force Sony to backtrack on these changes—only time will tell if the PSN requirement will break Helldivers 2 and Arrowhead Game Studios.
