The game Helldivers 2, which gained popularity earlier this year, can no longer be purchased for PC via Steam in many countries after the announcement that a PlayStation Network account will be mandatory for players. The problem is that PSN operates in a relatively small number of countries. The situation has led to Helldivers 2 becoming unavailable in more than 170 regions, according to SteamDB. Steam is also refunding the purchase regardless of playtime.
On April 3, the publisher of Helldivers 2, Sony Interactive, announced on the Steam blog that PC players of Helldivers 2 will soon need to register a PlayStation Network account (if they don't have one yet) in order to continue playing the game. The company explains that technical issues during the game's launch forced the publisher to make the Steam-PSN link optional. However, the grace period will soon end and PSN will be mandatory starting from Monday.
The news didn't sit well with the gaming community: Helldivers 2 ratings on Steam have plummeted rapidly. Currently, the game has over 216k sharply negative reviews (17%) and almost 500k mixed (49%).
Sony's requirement practically closes the game for a significant number of users or forces them to violate the company's licensing terms. The regional ban on Steam makes it impossible to play the game and PSN through VPN.
"Yes, I had absolutely no idea how many countries don’t have the ability to create a PSN account when I made this statement. We have absolutely no intention of forcing people to violate Sony's terms of service or simply not play the game if they are in a restricted region. We need to find a better solution," wrote the game community manager on Discord. The CEO of the game developer Arrowhead, Johan Pilestedt, apologized to users for Sony's decision.
Meanwhile, the site DSOG "uncovered" that Sony quietly changed the terms of releasing its games on PC. In 2022, Sony stated that PC gamers would not need to log into PlayStation Network. The company clearly indicated that on PC, logging into PSN is not a mandatory choice. This information is taken from Sony PlayStation Network support page in 2022.
Sony later quietly changed this page. Now it states that for some PlayStation games on PC, you may need to connect to a PSN account, which sharply contrasts with the previous text.
It was previously reported that Ghost of Tsushima will not require a PSN account for single-player campaign on PC after all. However, an account will still be needed for cooperative mode.
Sources: Wccftech, VGC, DSOG, Insider Gaming, GamesRadar
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