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When Sony demanded that Helldivers 2 players create PSN accounts, players fought back. The backlash tanked the game’s review score on Steam, causing Sony to backpedal on the PSN requirement. We celebrated, thinking we had won. We were wrong. Instead of pursuing its original plan, Sony (or some combination of Sony, Valve, and Arrowhead) simply shut down the sale and activation of the game in countries without PSN access. Here’s how Sony effectively banned Helldivers 2 from 178 countries and what happens next.
PSN Problems
We won an early victory against Sony, but that victory was short-lived. According to SteamDB, there are now 178 countries where you can’t buy or activate Helldivers 2, effectively banning the game there. From Afghanistan and the Bahamas to Venezuela and Zimbabwe, Helldivers 2 might as well not exist. Whether you’re a Cadet, Skull Admiral, Super Private, or are still waiting to join the war for Managed Democracy, Sony’s reported actions should concern you.
Though Sony and Arrowhead gave various reasons (security being a big one) for the PSN requirement, the acquisition and sale of player data seems a more likely motive on Sony’s part. By all appearances, Sony was happy to risk undermining players if it meant the chance to cash in. Corporate overreach is nothing new, but the aggressive push for unnecessary account linking, followed by the mass delisting of countries, hurts. I will die to Bile Titans with a smile on my face, but watching my community get shredded like Terminid meat under a LAS beam stings.
The cruelest part of the story is that the shots we fired at Sony glanced off its corporate shell like Defender rounds off a Factory Strider’s hull. Arrowhead took those hits instead. While the devs bear some culpability, it’s unfair that they (and their phenomenal game) should suffer for what was (mostly) Sony’s decision. Whether Helldivers 2 succeeds or fails makes almost zero difference to Sony’s bottom line. Maybe that’s why a controversial move like pushing mandatory PSN linking seemed acceptable. It’s easy to gamble with someone else’s Super Credits.
Unity and the Galactic War
The Galactic War isn’t about who has the best guns or the highest K/D. It’s about unifying with your fellow players in the pursuit of a common goal. Whether stomping bugs or blasting robots, you’re pushing Super Earth’s agenda as part of a larger community. Major Orders, planetary defense objectives, and other cooperative actions are the lifeblood of the game. Preventing players in 178 countries from participating is against the very spirit of Helldivers 2. Of course, Arrowhead can tweak mission requirements as necessary to accommodate the change, but it never should have had to.
Few games do grand-scale PvE as well as Helldivers 2, and anything that stymies that cooperation is a problem. Online toxicity is often the default, yet Arrowhead has managed to foster a weirdly wholesome community. You’ll find elitism and random trolling, but far less than you’d expect. The game’s relentless satire and humor are one reason. The emphasis on shared objectives is another. By creating unnecessary division and cutting many players out completely, the PSN/Sony debacle undermines the foundation of Helldivers 2. We dive together. That’s the point.
Moves like the ones Sony made are becoming more common, not less. Although the review-bombing (and rebuilding) of Helldivers 2 demonstrated the power of collective action, it also demonstrated its weaknesses. Gamers need more than will to push back against corporate overreach. We need the information to do so properly and the coordination to sustain our efforts once they’ve begun. We can’t count on Malevelon Creek to unite us. I want this game to outlive Super Earth, but we’ll need more than Stratagems to make that happen.
Helldivers 2 is available for PC and PlayStation 5.
