I an announcement that has garnered them a massive amount of criticism, Sony and Arrowhead have revealed that Helldivers 2 will soon require a PlayStation Network account regardless of platform or crossplay options. In other words, all PC players will be required to link their Steam and PSN accounts by June 4th in order to continue playing the game.

Usually these sort of account requirements are annoying and there's a fair bit of grumbling about them, but they're innocuous enough that most people just go through with it and move on with their day. This time it's a bit special, however, as not only is Helldivers 2 bringing this up many months after launch, but PSN also has two major issues that are unique to it.

First and foremost, PSN is only available in a third of the countries, and this list even excludes the Baltics. So if you're in one of the unsupported countries you'll have to make an account with fake credentials and link your Steam to it. It probably won't ever matter but this does technically open you to getting banned at any point for breaking the terms of service.

The second issue that's frequently brought up is Sony's lackluster efforts at data protection. Throughout the past decade they have been victims of multiple major data breaches, including four distinct cases where massive amounts of PSN user data was stolen. Not exactly ideal!

In response to this whole kerfuffle, Helldivers 2 players have decided to do the one thing they've been trained to do all along - use the power of democracy to (hopefully) get things done. As such, the Helldivers 2 subreddit, Discord and social media have all been abuzz with criticism, and the game's previously pristine Steam page has been showered with so many negative reviews that it now sits at mostly negative recent reviews.

As for me personally, I find myself in agreement with the playerbase here as I've had nothing but trouble with my PSN account, so much so that I've never even managed to link it to Helldivers 2 because it constantly kept bringing up how my region isn't supported despite it being listed on their website. At the same time, I do find it incredibly sad to see Helldivers 2's well-earned positive reputation undermined in a single dumb decision.

Finally, Arrowhead have said that they're looking into some sort of solution for the unsupported regions, but outside of that small comment nothing concrete has been announced just yet. Once that changes, and hopefully once a mutually beneficial solution gets found, I'll make sure to let you know.

Until then, I guess we just get to sit and watch the show.