Helldivers 2 has been one of the most popular shooters as of recent, along with one of the best live service games on the market! Drawing inspiration from the ultra-patriotic Starship Troopers franchise, you fight against the evil Terminids and Automatons to spread Super Earth’s managed democracy and liberty across the galaxy. Unlike other popular games, this is entirely PvE with teams, and no PVP other than the enabled friendly fire on teammates. This game was clearly made with love by Arrowhead Game Studios, but it was published by Sony, who had made a very stupid decision.
Sony had originally planned for the game to be fully connected to the PlayStation Network, both on PlayStation consoles and PC, but it was delayed due to the game’s extreme popularity. On May 2nd, posted to the Steam page was an announcement that they would be enforcing players to link to PSN by May 6th (the time of writing this article) as it would be crucial to “protecting [their] players and upholding the values of safety and security on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games.”
Some defended this by the fact that making a PSN account is a free, easy process. While that is true, there is more nuance to the situation to say the least. To start, “security” hasn’t been something very well protected by PlayStation, highlighted by Firewall Times’ timeline of Sony data breaches over the years. As well, PlayStation Network is not available in all countries, leading Sony to have removed Helldivers 2 fromĀ 177 countries, a not very super Super Earth to say the least.
As expected, Helldivers across the globe were furious with Sony, while Arrowhead was trying their best to avoid overwhelming hate from both fans and their publisher. One thing to know about Helldivers players is that they’re one of the most devoted player bases in gaming, defeating 2 billion Terminids, a “major order” expected to take almost a week inĀ 14 hours. Out of love for the game and hate for Sony, they nuked the reviews of the game in a matter of hours, mixing in many refunds too.
Unlike protests and boycotts before it like Hogwarts Legacy, the Helldivers 2 community managed to change Sony’s mind within a matter of days, what it took weeks or months for other protests to have failed for. Sony released a statement at around midnight on May 6th, stating that they would not push the PSN requirement, and thanked players for their feedback. This is a massive success for everyone, a massive effort to change the minds of a company as big as Sony for the benefit of Helldivers worldwide. And, as they got what they wanted, thousands are changing their Steam reviews back to positive and bringing the game up to it’s prior ratings.
While this was a singular effort, it proves how powerful the gaming community can be when everyone is coordinated towards one effort. Many fans assure that they would be willing to do this again if there was another change as terrible as this out of love for the game. Maybe this could serve as a precedent, and could lead to games or companies changing for the better. However, the fight’s not over. Sony is continuing to restrict access to Helldivers 2 in those same 177 countries mentioned earlier. As well, Ghost of Tsushima’s PC release has cancelled pre-orders to those in countries without PSN, leading to more outrage. We need to keep the fight going, let these companies know what they’re doing is wrong, and perhaps they’ll listen one day.
