Sony has removed Helldivers 2 from sale on Steam in more than 170 regions, per SteamDB. This is following Sony’s push to enforce a requirement for all Helldivers 2 Steam players to link their Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account.
When the announcement was made that linking accounts would be a requirement for all players, many were incensed, especially those players who live in regions where PlayStation doesn’t operate, and it would be impossible for them to get a PSN account.
When Helldivers 2 launched, no one saw its success coming, which was apparent in the fact that Arrowhead had to work quickly as it could to make sure the servers could handle such an unexpected amount of players.
It was a wonderful surprise for Sony and Arrowhead to have Helldivers 2 do so well, and a huge part of that success came from the game releasing simultaneously on PS5 and PC.
All was going well, until Sony made this push to enforce a requirement that it’s now clear, no one wants. The amount of player backlash from the whole Helldivers 2 community, not just those in regions where they can’t even get a PSN account, seems overwhelming. It’ll be interesting to see if Sony ultimately decides to backtrack, or just push through.