Helldivers 2 removed from Steam in numerous countries following developer apology

Sony is officially fumbling the bag with one of its hottest games ever released, as a seemingly simple announcement has led to more than 100,000 new negative reviews and thousands of gamers enraged.

Quick backstory: Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on the Helldivers 2 Steam blog that the grace period for it being optional to link a player's Steam account to a PlayStation Network account is coming to an end, and after May 6, all new Helldivers 2 players will be required to connect their Steam account to a PSN account, while current Steam players will begin to see a mandatory login from May 30 and will be required to have linked a Steam and PlayStation Network account by June 4.

Despite the news of accounts having to be connected being announced back in January, players only began reacting recently with a wave of negative reviews. Some of these reviews pointed out important factors such as some countries don't have access to the PlayStation network, meaning the player won't be able to make an account and would be locked out of Helldivers 2. A game that they purchased.

Other reviews pointed to Sony wanting to bolster its total number for PSN network users to satisfy shareholders in a time of dismal console sales.

The CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Studios apologized to the community for everything that transpired, with other Arrowhead staff writing on various social platforms that it was Sony's decision and not theirs. More specifically, On Discord, Arrowhead community manager 'Spitz' wrote the following.

"Yeah, I was completely unaware how many countries didn't have the ability to make a PSN account when I made that statement," Spitz wrote. "I deeply regret implying that it was so easy for everyone to just sign up and not have to worry about it. It's absolutely not our intention to force people to break Sony ToS or just not to play the game if they're in a restricted region. There needs to be a better solution."

In response to this mishap, Helldivers 2 has now been pulled down from multiple Steam stores in various regions. Valve is also offering refunds for the game, even for gamers who have played more than 2 hours, which is usually the cut off point for a refundable game.