After a huge outcry from the Helldivers 2 community over the weekend, Sony has today heeded player concerns and reversed its decision to make PSN account linking mandatory.
The news came in a short statement shared by Sony its @PlayStation account on X (formerly Twitter) late on Sunday evening. In the release, which has already been viewed more than 21 million times, the publisher said it had taken all the weekend’s feedback “to heart” and confirmed the impending May 6 update (and its expected May 30 follow-up) that would have required Steam and PlayStation Network account linking would no longer happen.
“We’re still learning what is best for PC players, and your feedback has been invaluable,” Sony’s statement concluded. “Thanks again for your continued support of Helldivers 2 and we’ll keep you updated on future plans.”
The surprise Sunday development comes after Sony’s move to make PSN account linking mandatory for anyone wanting to play Helldivers 2 caused millions to lose access to the game. As the number of blocked players grew, so did the chorus of angry fans across Reddit and other social media platforms.
Earlier, the developers had announced that the grace period for not having to connect Steam accounts to PSN accounts was now coming to an end. The decision immediately backfired, with millions of gamers rushing to leave negative reviews on the game’s Steam page; most asked the devs to take back the PSN decision. The highly-popular game is still an ‘overwhelmingly negative’ title on Steam today.
While a lot of crossplay games do ask gamers to link their PSN accounts (to connect across playing hardware), this saga made it clear what a lot of gamers think about the situation: They’d rather avoid extra profile linking.
Either way, this weekend’s Helldivers 2 incident will go down in history, with many players now hoping it will change how publishers work with communities.
