Sony Apologizes To Helldivers 2 Fans After Mass Refunds
It's been a whirlwind weekend for "Helldivers 2." On Friday, PC players were demanding refunds after Sony announced that the game would start requiring PC users to link their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. Players were upset about being asked to jump through extra hoops to play their favorite game, but some were extra mad about the fact that they couldn't even get a PSN account if they wanted to. The PSN doesn't support every country and region in the world, and signing up for an account in a region outside your own is against Sony's terms of service. Players were rightfully pointing out that following Sony's rules would block them from ever playing the game again. By Sunday morning, that nasty little caveat led to "Helldivers 2" being taken down from the Steam store in over 100 countries.
By Sunday evening, however, Sony thankfully reversed course. The company maintains, "We're still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable." Some might argue that it should have been obvious that the PSN linking rule wouldn't be popular with PC gamers, but Sony's not wrong in pointing out that it's relatively new to the PC gaming space. Either way, the backtracking is a definite victory, and Arrowhead and its players are tentatively celebrating the win.
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
Arrowhead rocked its response
While this "Helldivers 2" crisis unfolded over the weekend, everyone at Arrowhead Game Studios did their best to help fans direct their outrage in useful ways. On the "Helldivers" Discord, Arrowhead's community managers sympathized with fans and told them that the best way to make their feelings known to Sony would be to request refunds and leave reviews on the game's Steam page. Elsewhere, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt acknowledged that even though Sony dictated the PSN account linking, he still had a role to play in the controversy. It turns out that Pilestedt made the call to waive the PSN requirement when the game first launched, citing issues with server stability. In retrospect, he felt he should have done a better job letting players know that the PSN requirement was still coming eventually.
I do have a part to play. I am not blameless in all of this – it was my decision to disable account linking at launch so that players could play the game. I did not ensure players were aware of the requirement and we didn't talk about it enough.
We knew for about 6 months before...
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 5, 2024
A couple hours after Sony rolled back the requirement, Pilestedt was joking about how a graph of the game's sudden drop in Steam review scores could make for a cool in-game cape. In the replies, Pilestedt assured fans, "The team is [talking] about a good name for it right now."
Also, the accidental cape design is pretty cool. From a community member. pic.twitter.com/7LQZA6Rekw
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 6, 2024
Fans react to good Helldivers 2 news
Even as fans were bombarding "Helldivers 2" with refund requests and bad reviews, few of them actually believed that they could move Sony to change its mind about the game's PSN requirements. Since the requirement had quietly been a part of the game before it even launched, everyone knew they were fighting an uphill battle. Of course, that made the victory so much sweeter when it did come. If fans could have danced in the street, they would have.
Some channeled the energy of other game characters to celebrate the win. Beating Sony does seem like a move that would make Johnny Silverhand proud.
So bullying Mega Corps Dose Work pic.twitter.com/FxUduUh4Cc
— Neo Gray ネオ Bratty Gremlin Hikikomori Neko VTuber (@Demonneko12) May 6, 2024
Others called for people to lay off the devs now that the battle was won, while also pointing out that Arrowhead had very little leeway here because Sony is their publisher.
Now can everyone quit taking this out on the Helldivers 2 Devs?
They ended up in the crossfire for this and it wasn't fair to them as they were doing what they were contractually obligated to do.
— BakedGrizz (@BakedGrizz) May 6, 2024
Not everyone is ready to lay down their arms just yet. Some are urging Sony to go one step further and bring "Helldivers 2" to Xbox. As of this writing, "Helldivers 2" still hasn't been relisted in the regions that lost it over the weekend. Many players are saying that their negative reviews will stay up until everyone is allowed back in the game. That's almost guaranteed to happen now that the PSN requirement has been dropped, but some fans will no doubt remain on-guard after this. After all, the folks who got refunds will need to re-buy the game.