Helldivers 2 will require a mandatory PlayStation account even on PC, it’s already controversial
Helldivers 2 is about to require a mandatory PlayStation account on PC too, with expiration dates set, and it hasn’t been taken very well.
With a sudden change of policy, Sony has decided that, starting from June, a PlayStation account will be mandatory to play Helldivers 2 also on PC , as recently reported in an official message from the developers and the thing is already causing discussion the community.
It is not at all strange that something like this is requested: there are many titles that require the linking of multiple accounts in order to function, especially those with online multiplayer bases, but it is bizarre that this request occurs at a later time.
The statement from Sony and Arrowhead claims that this is due to “technical problems”, which prevented the link from the PlayStation account to the Steam account from being included as mandatory from the beginning , and that therefore the obligation only emerged later.
At this point, this “grace period” is over, and a PlayStation account will be mandatory to play Helldivers 2 starting from June 4, 2024 for players already present within the title in question, while for new players the obligation will come into force as early as May 6th.
Sony’s reasons and the controversies
“The account link plays a vital role in protecting our players and maintaining the security values maintained by PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games,” reads the message in question.
“This is our primary way to protect players from abuse and negative behavior by enabling the ability to ban users who engage in this type of conduct and also allowing them to be able to appeal such decisions.”
Those who already play Helldivers 2 will therefore have to link to a PlayStation account from 4 June, with warnings that will begin to be visible from 30 May, while new players will have to link from 6 May .
This isn’t a major inconvenience: the PlayStation account is obviously free and requires a few steps to create, if you don’t already have one, but the issue doesn’t seem to have been received very positively by the user community on Steam , as we can also see on Reddit .
The negativity is linked above all to the inconvenience of having to use multiple accounts and to more principled issues relating to the need to provide data to Sony or in general to third parties outside the platform actually in use, similar to what happens with the many other titles that require linking different accounts, but there are also questions about how the game will work in those countries not supported by PSN but where Helldivers 2 was still sold through Steam.