Helldivers 2 to Start Requiring PC Players to Connect to a PlayStation Network Account - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 May 2024 / 5,284 Views
Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Arrowhead Game Studios announced PC players of Helldivers 2 will be required to link to a PlayStation Network Account in the coming days and weeks.
New Helldivers 2 players on Steam will be required to link a PSN account starting on May 6, while current players will see a mandatory login starting May 30 and will be required to have linked their Steam account to a PSN account by June 4.
"Due to technical issues at the launch of Helldivers 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire. See details below in this post.
"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. 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.
"As such, as of May 6th, all new Helldivers 2 players on Steam will be required to connect their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. Current players on Steam will start to see the mandatory login from May 30th and will be required to have linked a Steam and PlayStation Network account by June 4th. PlayStation Network accounts are free and easy to set up using this link.
"We understand that while this may be an inconvenience to some of you, this step will help us to continue to build a community that you are all proud to be a part of."
Circana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella recently stated that Sony launching Helldivers 2 on PlayStation 5 and PC on the same day has been a "massive, resounding success."
PC has been a huge part of the success of Helldivers II in the US," said Piscatella. "With PC, Helldivers II is already the 7th highest grossing Sony published game in history. Without PC it wouldn't currently rank among the top 20.
"And according to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, Helldivers II has ranked first in US MAU on Steam each month since launch (including April). Launching Helldivers II on both PlayStation and PC has been nothing short of a massive, resounding success."
Helldivers 2 released for the PlayStation 5 and PC on February 8.
Helldivers! An important message from our partner Playstation about account linking for PC players and its significance in providing player safety features.
— HELLDIVERS™ 2 (@helldivers2) May 3, 2024
Read the full message here: https://t.co/L1A9jv8yBf pic.twitter.com/q3eXKbtoNB
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Sony is about to find out real quick how different the audiences between PC and Playstation are.
It said something like "Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)" before according to people so I'm not surprised.
That notice wasn't there at launch. It only had the EULA and the 3rd party DRM notification. Account linking was there but optional till now.
The biggest problem appears to be is that Helldivers 2 is playable in countries where PSN isn't even supported. So there will be players who will suddenly not be able to play the game anymore. Which is a massive oversight.
It was listed from day one, but it was turned to optional in game because there was an issue with it.
Yeah you right! I was thinking when the Steam page was at pre-launch. Makes it all the more questionable as to why they didn't also try to resolve this inevitable issue for players that won't be able to play the game they paid for anymore now. Probably should offer refunds for players in the affected countries.
I’m 100% no one will be locked out and that will be resolved before it’s an issue.
Fingers crossed! Looks like Arrowhead is also trying to get answers from Sony on this according to one of their Community Managers.
Yup, it’s an issue lol. Unfortunately your prediction didn’t age well
I thought this doesn't go into affect until June for players who have already been playing? In which case they hopefully will have a solution for countries where people can't make PSN accounts.
Personally I'd just make a PSN account for another country, which I've already done a few times because the store offerings differ.
That's what I thought. Although I can never be certain with my memory lol.
some were saying it was server related, others are saying its because there was no way to enforce it with the limited scope PSN has for account creation. Sony knows they have a problem though... PSN services 70 countries around the world whereas Steam services 150.
So that is a pretty big delta between them.
You can create a PSN account outside your country. Creating a PSN account and linking is not a major problem, It can be done easily.
That would be great……if Sony didn’t double down and just outright pull the game off Steam from countries that don’t support PSN
Is Sony the one pulling the games out? Or is Steam the one delisting?
Valve wouldn’t have the authority to pull a game from specific markets just because. Sony could sue because they would be losing money without their approval. Also, the change hasn’t happened yet. Valve wouldn’t make a change on something that could still potentially change.
Valve can either completely pull a game off of Steam like a CP2077 level situation or offer refunds. They’re not going to be selective unless directed.
Considering Sony are the Publishers, they have full control on where the game is sold.
You can still create a PSN account on a supported country and link the account. It Will work most times.
Sony was caught changing the wording to "PSN is optional" to "PSN is Required for some games"
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?l=italian&id=3238751397
Surprised it's taken this long tbh lol. Every multiplayer game these days requires a linking to an account. At least this one doesn't require a DRM launcher running at all times in the background. But the main problem is that Helldivers 2 has been playable this whole time in countries where PSN is not supported. So a lot of players are going to be screwed over by this. VPN isn't an answer either as you risk at being banned by Sony.
If that is the case and they lose access, then they legit have a reason to complain and get their money back and I hope it goes through but it seems odd that Steam, Sony and the devs would want that. They want people playing and spending. Being restrictive doesn't benefit the idea of GaaS and making as much money as possible.
Is it the same for other games that need another account? Xbox Live, Ubisoft accounts etc.
VPN?? Playstation is not like Xbox. I live in Brazil and i have JP and USA account since PS3 era. They all work great.
Biggest nothing-burger ever, do ppl also complain that all Meta Quest VR games require a Facebook account? Don't hear outrage over that one do we?
Well... FB is available in more countries than PSN.
the countries are a non issue. you can make an account in any region you want and there has never been any repurcussions from sony. people make accounts to buy from the japanese psn store for ages.
Can second that as I've made PSN accounts for Sweden, USA, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong.
Well... I've actually seen quite a few comments about that, at least years ago. Not sure what the current situation is though. But on my behalf, not trusting Meta with my data is probably the biggest reason I don't have a Meta Quest.
Honestly surprised this wasn't the case already.
This aged well.
It seems that Sony's looking to impress their investors. PSN capitalizes on the success of Helldivers, and stock price goes up! Though this move has seemingly had less-than-desirable effects on their lightning-in-a-bottle success (in particular via word-of-mouth), the game will continue to be a flaming success. Congrats to Sony on successfully enforcing an anti-consumer move, I guess...
The requirement for a PSN account is listed on the Steam Store page since day one. There was an issue with it that let people skip it,
ah I see. So the original plan was to impress investors at launch, but a bug came in and stopped Sony in their tracks...unfortunate the bug wasn't able to hold them off forever.
You can make a reasonable argument against the PSN account requirement, but "impressing investors" when success wasn't guaranteed yet is just nonsense.
Psn Monthly Active Users for last quarter was 123m. Helldivers 2 now might have 1-2m MAU on Steam(PlayTracker says 2.2m “Active Users” currently) . So if every single one of those players are completely new users to PSN then that's still barely moving the needle.
Sea of thieves on PS5 requires an Xbox account too. Is that anti consumer?
I know this’ll shock you…but I have never touched an Xbox in all my life. I play Sony and (mostly) Nintendo.
So yes, Sea of Thieves requiring an Xbox account is anti-consumer. It’s not as anti-consumer as most anti-consumer practices (so much that I don’t even think anti-consumer is the right term…), but I don’t think anybody’s celebrating that they now have to log into both PSN and Steam account to play a round of Helldivers.
You don't need to log in to PSN to play. You link the account in Steam settings and never need to log in to PSN a single time.
No because people know to sign in to an Xbox/MS account at launch. Not months later after selling the game.
I honestly dont understand this "huge" backlash. The only issue seems to be that PSN isn't available in some countries, but those are the minority, and surely that will be fixed soon. Why are people so pissed off about this to this extent?
Thank goodness someone on here has some common sense. They're saying that because Sony changed the requirement after the game had launched, that it was a bait and switch and bad practice from Sony. If PSN accounts cost money to set up, then I would completely understand the backlash, but they are free and quick to set up. What a shame that people thought they had a right to lash out like this.
