Sony has walked back its decision to require Helldivers 2 PC players to link PlayStation accounts to their Steam profiles in order to continue playing.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Sony says it has "heard" fans' feedback and will not be moving forward with today's planned update, which would have been the first stage in requiring players to provide PlayStation credentials to play Helldivers 2 on PC.
Sony says it's "still learning what is best for PC players" and that players' feedback has been "invaluable".
After Arrowhead and Sony announced that players would need a Sony account to play Helldivers 2 on PC, players met the news with widespread outrage and hostility.
The game was review bombed heavily on Steam, attracting thousands upon thousands of negative reviews from disgruntled players. Even the original Helldivers was hit by the controversy, attracting positive reviews owing to the fact that it doesn't require a PSN account to play.
Sony and Arrowhead's woes worsened over the weekend when Helldivers 2 was delisted from more than 100 countries in which it isn't possible to legally create a PSN account. Naturally, the release of the Polar Patriots Warbond probably wasn't going to go as well while all of this was hovering over the game.
For his part, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt says he's "impressed" by the Helldivers 2 community's willingness to collaborate. He also praises Sony for "quickly and effectively" making the decision that PC players won't need a PSN account.
Speaking to another user on X, Pilestedt says that Helldivers 2 was signed eight years ago, and that account linking wasn't specified in the deal signed between Arrowhead and Sony.
He also reiterates that the decision to postpone account linking was made due to the strain that was being put on Helldivers 2 servers from its high player count, and that enabling linking again carried a renewed "risk to explode the servers".
Pilestedt says that when Sony made the call to re-enable account linking, he and his team knew there would be backlash, and, indeed, that's exactly what happened.
Now, it seems that nature is healing. Positive Steam reviews are once again pouring in for Helldivers 2 (although most of them still mention this controversy), and Helldivers 2's devs appear to be actively discussing making the Steam review bomb pattern into a genuine cape for the game.
For now, it looks like the Helldivers 2 controversy is over. Watch this space for more info on this game, and don't forget to read our review if you want to find out whether it's any good (spoiler: it is).
