Attention Helldivers, 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 i...
The game is now unplayable for me. PSN accounts are not available in my area so I’m fully locked out. Requesting a refund but doubt I’ll get it. Arrowhead literally turned off this game permanently for me.
Going solely off your username, no PSN in Poland? Not that anyone should be forced to make a new account for a game they’ve had for months regardless of where they are.
What a dumb move, timing this with trying to convince people to buy the new warbond. Hopefully Sony reverses this decision after seeing how badly this damages the health of the game.
Unfortunately for those requesting refunds, unless you're in an area that's soon to be excluded, you likely won't get your money back. The game has had the requirement for the PSN account linking listed on the Steam page since day 1, so it's unlikely that Valve will do much in this situation.
Arrowhead isn't free of guilt in this, but Sony and Valve should have both done a much better job at making this clear to players earlier on, since they're in charge of marketing/sales on PC. Like, in-game messaging would have been good for this. They also should have never allowed the sale of the game on regions PSN isn't available to in the first place, since they already knew they would killswitch non-linked accounts eventually.
Arrowhead isn’t free of guilt in this, but Sony and Valve should have both done a much better job at making this clear to players earlier on, since they’re in charge of marketing/sales on PC.
Well they kinda did. When you first launched the game it did say that you need a PSN account to play. I know this because that's when I learned PSN isn't available in my country. But you were able to skip it and after skipping you never saw this notification again. Valve also has it on the store page "Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)", but nobody reads those little notices. I don't blame anyone for missing that information, especially since not linking PSN accounts has not affected the game for months.
I'm not going to to anything hasty. I hope Sony walks it back because I do enjoy the game, but if by June nothing has changed I will ask a refund from Valve because I'll literally be unable to play the game, unless I go against PSN ToS. I have no problem getting on the FUCK SONY train once they've left me no other choice.
Was the account linking mentionned anywhere on steam?
It's really feels like a new condition sneaked in...
Edit: apparently it was clearly stated on steam and on the first launch of the game. I really have bad skipping habits...
The "it's to protect players against hakerzzzzz" doesn't feel very legit.
If you read the announcement, it's obviously a very carefully worded prepared statement from Sony that they've been given and ordered to pass out. The hackers reasoning is made up and just the best excuse they could come up with, Sony wants more data in their environment and they're being forced to comply.
Ironically, a feature I wish DRG would add is linking PSN accounts with Steam accounts, and save importing/exporting. I played 300hrs of DRG on PS5 since it was 'free" on PS+. Now I've switched to PC so I can play with mods but I'm back at square one with a new save.
Please inform any inactive / retired Helldivers to ask for a refund if their country does not support a PS account as they should not have been able to play the game in the first place.
I am unable to verify which countries are affected.
If you take a look at its reception, the community definitely treats it like a major departure from other live service game practices. I’d tend to agree— the price, micro transactions, content and quality all seem very fair compared to other live service games in the space.
I loved this game but PSN isn't available in Estonia so I'm just locked out a month from now. I don't even want a refund, I just wanna play with my wife and friends.
I have a PlayStation account but I bought the game when this wasn't a requirement and it wasn't clearly expressed that this would be forced on me. If I wanted this game tied to my PSN I would have bought it on PS5.
Fuckin hell this shit pisses me off. I'm done playing.
See and that's where they lose me. If it was truly a requirement, why disable it at all? If it's a requirement now, why could I play before without it? I get the game had network issues when it launched so they disabled the PSN requirements at that time. They could have resolved those network issues without disabling the PSN linking. Convenient that they also sold this game in regions where PSN isn't available and now those people are just SOL.
I know legally they're covered, because they have disclosures on the store page and at the start of the game. I don't care. Fuck their disclosures. This was a stupid way to handle it. They can have their legal victory, they lost a player anyways.
All they had to do is make PSN linking optional and this wouldn't be an issue for the vast majority of people that don't exactly trust Sony with their data. Not like they've had a repeated history of hacks and leaks of PSN customer data.
One was known to be part of the game right off the bat, so it wasn't as much of a betrayal to me even if i dont love it.
This psn stuff was technically somewhere in the fine print, but the fact no psn account was required for all these months makes their "security" pretense even more unbelievable, especially when as you point out a very invasive anti cheat is already part of the game.
Now players such as me have spent quite a few hours leveling up, farming stuff, perhaps even spending some cash, and are now when the refund period has lapsed coerced into creating yet another intrusive and redundant account with a console company, while I don't even have one.
But maybe, just maybe enough folks will review bomb or request refunds to get Sony to backtrack.
50k negative steam reviews in a single day is a pretty good incentive to reverse course. Thats more negative reviews in a single day then a fair amount of games recieve overall. Folks were absolutely not keen on what they viewed as a bait and switch.
As for how much it'll impact actual numbers I think time is going to be the important factor, more particularly trending players over time... and what happens on the proverbial D-day.
It wasn't required before? I was prompted to do it when I launched the game for the first time, and it didn't look like I could skip it. I fumbled with it for a bit because I apparently already had a PSN account with my email when i tried to make one, and ended up having to reset the password.
I was pretty late to the party tbh (the TCS had been deployed right before I started playing), so maybe the option to skip account linking had already been removed at that point? Either that or I was distracted while going through the first time launch.
Honestly you're a bit late to the party. The player quality has dropped notably over the last weeks, and the gameplay is very fun but also not very varied.
A bit like playing d2 back in the day, you cleave through hordes of enemies to get more power and cleave more effectively through hordes of enemies.
If this PSN bullshit isnt putting you off feel free to of course, bit the big hype window has already passed and you can feel the decline.
I'm pretty sure that, even under guidance from a support rep, Sony would still ban your account for not registering it in a valid country if they ever somehow detected it.
They really need to put out some concise messaging on this, ASAP.
They have put out concise messaging. They have committed fraud selling a product which now cannot be played in multiple locations. That was the messaging.
This reminds me of that GirlfriendReviews joke about multiple game stores. "You mean to tell me that instead of clicking this thingy over here to launch my game, now I have to click this other thingy over there?"