Helldivers 2 is being review bombed over nothing (Arrowhead/Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Those who play Helldivers 2 on Steam will soon have to link a PlayStation Network account for greater security, and some players aren’t taking it well.

Between topping the UK charts for two consecutive months and becoming the seventh highest grossing Sony published game ever in the US, Helldivers 2 has been a resounding success since its launch in February.

Its success is partly down to its simultaneous release across PC and PlayStation 5 , which will likely encourage Sony to publish more games across multiple platforms.

This cross-platform release strategy does come with some irritations though, as made clear by a new requirement which will force PC players to have a PlayStation Network account even if they don’t own a PlayStation console.

This requirement was present when the game originally launched, but it was temporarily removed in light of technical issues due to the unexpectedly huge player numbers.

Now the ‘grace period has expired’, Sony is making the account link mandatory from Monday, May 6 for new players. Current players on Steam, meanwhile will start to see mandatory login pages from May 30, and will be required to have a linked PlayStation Network account by Tuesday, June 4.

In a post outlining the change, 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.




Since the news broke about PSN requirement for Steam players, 89.1% of reviews have been negative #Helldivers2 pic.twitter.com/FBlXKMFpQj — Helldivers 2 Media (@Helldiversmedia) May 3, 2024




‘This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal.’

While the process of creating a PlayStation Network account (you can sign up here ) isn’t that much bother, the inconvenience has led to a wave of negative reviews on Steam, while some have wildly claimed ‘the game is dead’.

‘Again demonstrating how Sony can ruin anything,’ wrote one disgruntled player on Steam .

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Linking accounts across multiplatform games has become fairly commonplace recently. Sea Of Thieves , which was recently released on PlayStation 5, requires players to have a Microsoft account to play and forces you to link it with a PSN account, while Grounded requires the same if you want to enable cross-play.

While it might be annoying to have these different accounts, it will likely become a new norm as Xbox and PlayStation steer further towards multiplatform releases.





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