Helldivers 2 devs claim they’re fighting back against Sony’s mandatory PSN requirement

Helldivers 2 community manager Spitz made a number of statements via messages in the game’s official Discord, revealing that these changes were enforced by Sony and that they’ve had a “universally negative” response internally.

From the moment the PSN requirement was announced, players suspected Arrowhead wasn’t the driving force behind making it mandatory to have a PSN account to play on Steam.

As it turns out, those players were right. Though the official announcement on their Steam page claims the linking options between a Steam account and a PSN were “temporarily optional,” players were still very critical of the change. And, according to community manager Spitz, so are the devs.

“Internal discussions are ongoing about the mandatory linking change and while I can’t reveal details, the response from our dev teams has been pretty universally negative and we’re looking for better options,” he explained.

He also claimed he was “completely unaware” of how PSN’s mandatory inclusion would affect players in countries where you can’t create PSN accounts and that the FAQ, Steam announcement, and actual change to the game are all coming from Sony, not Arrowhead.

Additionally, he had some words of reassurance for players worried they wouldn’t be able to play the game anymore:

“If a better solution isn’t provided for players who are in regions without PSN coverage, I’m assured that we won’t be making the requirement mandatory for those players. We’re not going to force people to either break Sony TOS or not play the game.”

Spitz was in hot water earlier in the day for comments about the game and claiming that this change wasn’t a huge deal, and he’s since apologized.

“Nobody should feel bad for me tbh. I let the negativity get under my skin and gave a few people attitude, that’s on me. I completely understand why people are upset at the required account linking – I’m not thrilled about it either, and my suggestion to people to change their reviews to negative was completely genuine. There are good and bad ways to express discontent, and coming after the devs and moderators in here isn’t the solution and won’t get this decision changed,” he explained.

Spitz continued, “People are emotional and rightfully so, many of them won’t be able to play the game anymore. It sucks. I’m not trying to attack anyone for being displeased with the change, I’m just trying to protect my team from the backlash, so I jumped on the grenade.”

He assured fans that the Arrowhead team is “on the side of the players in this fight.”

Pirate Software, who was very critical of the initial announcement, would go on to praise these statements, though he didn’t mince words when it came to Sony’s involvement.

“This entire situation didn’t need to happen and leaves a black eye on Sony as a publisher,” Pirate Software said.

Ultimately, while the level of review bombing here may hurt the game’s reputation, devs are hopeful the overwhelmingly negative community response will force Sony to make changes. In this case, those negative reviews may matter.

Additionally, Arrowhead CEO Pilestedt commented on the situation as well:

“We are talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries. Your voice has been heard, and I am doing everything I can to speak for the community – but I don’t have the final say.”

PlayStation who does have the final say has since relented to pressure from players and decided to halt the launch of the May 6 update. Helldivers 2 players on PC will not need to create a PSN account for the time being.