‘Ouch’: Helldivers 2 dev apologises as it’s hit with over 100,000 negative reviews

The developer of Helldivers 2 has apologised after fans barraged the game’s Steam page with negative reviews over news of a mandatory PlayStation Account requirement.

On Friday, publisher Sony announced that, from May 30, the Steam version of Helldivers will require all players to sign in with a PlayStation Network account.

This requirement was briefly present when Helldivers 2 launched, but it was removed after the game’s huge early success led to technical issues.

Many PC players, particularly those in countries where the service is not available, are clearly not happy with the return of the PSN requirement.

At the time of publication, Helldivers 2 has been hit with over 100,000 negative reviews on Steam in less than 48 hours, according to Steamdb, which accounts for a third of all of its user reviews to date.

The review bombing triggered a response from developer Arrowhead, whose CEO Johan Pilestedt apologised on X.

“Ouch, right in the review score,” he wrote. “Well, I guess it’s warranted. Sorry everyone for how this all transpired. I hope we will make it up and regain the trust by providing a continued great game experience. I just want to make great games!”

Announcing the return of mandatory PSN account linking on Friday, Sony claimed the move was designed to protect players.

“Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games,” it said.

“This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal.”

According to research firm Circana, which this week published its US games industry sales report for March, Helldivers 2 already ranks 7th in lifetime US dollar sales for Sony published games after just two months of availability.