Helldivers 2 fans are forcing Sony to abandon the update

Wanting to impose on people who play shooters on PC, Helldivers 2 To sign up for its online service PlayStation Network, video game giant Sony sparked a riot that forced it to reverse its decision.

Fans Helldiverswe listened to your commentsSony wrote in a post Monday on Network X. Update May 6 […] will not take place“,” he explained, in a rather rare turn in the industry.

The Japanese company sparked an outcry on Friday by announcing that from May 6, people playing the game on a computer will have to link their account on the Steam platform from which they launch the game to their PlayStation Network (PSN) account. , property of Sony.

If Helldivers 2 offers the ability for people playing on PC and those playing on a PlayStation console to play games together, creating a link between accounts on the two platforms has until now been optional.

With this decision, Internet users accused Sony of wanting to artificially increase the number of registrations of its own online service.

Protest movement

As a direct result of Sony’s announcement, the game was unavailable on PC for the weekend in 177 countries, according to the SteamDB database. These places do not offer account opening options. PSN.

Helldivers 2 because I live in the Philippines”,”text”:”I have lost access to my main Helldivers 2 account because I live in the Philippines”}}”>I have lost access to my main account Helldivers 2 because I live in the Philippineswas annoyed by X Zanny, a YouTuber with 2.3 million subscribers.

In response, fans posted nearly 200,000 bad reviews of the game on Steam in less than three days, causing the game’s ratings to plummet and forcing Sony to back down.

Released in early February on PC and PlayStation 5. Helldivers 2 allows players to play as a soldier sent from planet to planet to fight hordes of insects and giant robots, in an atmosphere reminiscent of the series Starship Troopers Paul Verhoeven.

Still from the film “Starship Troopers” by Paul Verhoeven (file photo)

Photo: Touchstone Pictures

Developed by Swedish studio Arrowhead and published by Sony, the game has been a huge success since its launch, especially thanks to PC sales. At the beginning of May it became Sony’s seventh best-selling game in historyAccording to analyst Matt Piscatella of Circana.

According to TD Cowen analyst Doug Kreutz, by mid-March the game had already sold more than 8 million copies.

On X, Arrowhead director Johan Pilestedt said: impressed mobilizing Internet users and thanked Sony for reversing its decision.