Helldivers 2 Community Was Tricked by Sony; Claims Indie Developer and Twitch Streamer Pirate Software

The Helldivers 2 community has recently achieved a huge victory against Sony, following the cancellation of the PSN mandate, which was supposed to arrive in the game with its last update, as announced on May 3, 2024. Due to the PlayStation network being unavailable in over 100 countries, gamers were pretty angry at this decision. Following a massive review bomb on the Steam page, Sony and Arrowhead announced that they would be reverting from this decision and canceling the PSN account linking.

While this victory against a mega-corporation like Sony was a huge deal for fans, indie developer and Twitch streamer known as Pirate Software has recently claimed that the Helldivers 2 community was tricked by the PlayStation maker. 

Also read: Helldivers 2 Community Manager Seemingly Fired By Developers Following Cancelled Mandatory PSN Linking

Indie Developer Pirate Software Speaks on Helldivers 2 

Jason Thorn Hall founded Pirate Software as his long-standing dream of building an indie game developer studio. He has been a popular personality in the gaming scene and is often seen in podcasts where he shares opinions on the current industry. He has also worked at Blizzard for a long time in his career and marked his name in reputable games.  

In one of his recent X threads, Hall explained the whole issue behind the recent Helldivers 2 situation, elaborating on how Sony 'tricked' the fanbase after canceling the PSN account linking mandate. He explained that the community's revolt led to Helldivers 2 only standing on 13% positive review, which forced Sony to step back in and cancel the PSN decision. However, this was not a victory for all. According to Pirate Software, Sony did something unethical right after this, as they restricted Helldivers 2 from being purchased in all 177 of the countries where PSN is not available. He mentioned:

"Yet Sony did something sinister in the background. They restricted Helldivers 2 from being purchased in all 177 countries where PSN isn't available."

An Arrowhead Game Studios employee has also responded to this issue through the Discord server, as Pirate Software included a screenshot of the chat in his X thread. The developer has stated that they have spoken to partners at PlayStation and Valve and are trying to get the restriction undone. 

"I’m speaking to our partners at PlayStation and Valve and pushing for it to be undone. Getting the account linking took a herculean effort⁠ – but I won’t rest in my desire to have it available everywhere."

So far, there is no official news from Sony or Valve on who is responsible for the delisting of Helldivers 2 in 177 countries. Following this news, Pirate Software has also brought to light more Helldivers 2 delisting for fans. The game is now banned for purchase in Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, as of the past two hours. But Sony did not just stop there, according to Hall's thread, the upcoming Sony title, Ghost of Tsushima PC port is also banned from purchasing in the same countries. Gamers are still trying to find out Sony's motivation behind this giant move; however, it has been a radio silence on their part.

Lastly, fans are not only unhappy but have slowly started to revolt back once again after reading Pirate Software's reveal to the Helldivers 2, and the gaming community in general. Sony Group Corp's stock price has seen a huge dip in the past hour, as the news spreads more.