Amid the turmoil of the recent Helldivers 2 controversy, its predecessor Helldivers has also been review bombed by disappointed fans. The original's latest negative reviews criticize the account-linking requirement of Helldivers 2, which was eventually retracted by publisher Sony.
Earlier this year, Helldivers 2 came out to much fanfare and quickly became one of the biggest Sony launches on PC. Recently, the announcement of a post-launch update that would have required Helldivers 2 PC players to link their Steam and PSN accounts together stirred a big controversy, leading to many players review bombing the game, eventually forcing Sony to ditch the plan. However, it turns out that the first game, 2015's Helldivers, has also been caught in the crossfire despite not being a part of the incident.
Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt took to Twitter and highlighted that fans dissatisfied with the online co-op game's account linking update were also leaving negative reviews for the original Helldivers game. Stating how the occurrence «deeply saddens» him, he rhetorically questioned if the backlash around the Helldivers 2 controversy warranted review bombing of developer Arrowhead's older games and other Sony-published titles. The developer also emphasized that Helldivers has no PSN linking requirement and, hence, should not be the «target» for disappointed fans.
Taking a look at the Steam reviews of Helldivers: Dive Harder Edition, the influence of the sequel's controversial update seems evident. At the time of writing, the first game's «Recent Reviews» on Steam, which constitute 1,136 reviews, show up as «Mixed.» The surge in negative reviews seems to have started from May 3, around the same time Arrowhead announced the PSN account linking update for Helldivers 2. Diving deeper into the latest negative reviews, there is an obvious theme that involves criticizing PSN and Sony, further proving that the original game has been review bombed because of the Helldivers 2 controversy.
Given that Sony has now officially announced that it isn't going ahead with the account linking update, the review bombings can be expected to come to a stop for both Helldivers 2 and its prequel. As the PSN requirement has been dropped from plans, fans situated in countries that are not supported by PSN, and who had been locked out of purchasing Helldivers 2 earlier, may expect to get back access to the third-person shooter game soon. After PC players intensely opposed PSN account linking for Helldivers 2, it will be interesting to see how Sony handles the same for the multiplayer mode in Ghost of Tsushima when it rolls out for PC later this month.
Helldivers 2 is a third-person cooperative shooter developed by Arrowhead
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Gamers take a lot of unique and interesting names at face value, but there’s always an insightful origin story to be told. We spoke with Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt about how the name of the studio and Helldivers franchise came to be. Read on to learn how a translated last name, WWII airplane, and tongue-in-cheek humor played into these titles.
The Helldivers 2 community has been through a lot lately, with everything from failed Major Orders to Sony’s aborted attempt to force PC players to link their accounts to PSN to contend with. Now, the community’s attention has shifted onto a player who has unwittingly become the focus of an altogether more wholesome story.
When they’re not banding together to take on Sony or attempting to reinstate fired community managers, it turns out that Helldivers 2 players just want to make sure everyone feels included. Included in the co-op game’s endless war of attrition to protect Super Earth from bugs, robots, and basic awareness of military propaganda, and included in just having mates. Enter player ‘dremskiy’, whose tragic booting from a private game in which they just wanted to make friends has resulted in so many friend requests that their Steam account won’t accept any more.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has announced plans to roll back changes made to patrols and spawn rates following a recent patch after admitting the PlayStation Network controversy was the focus of its attention in recent weeks.
Helldivers 2's latest update adds PSN support to PC, letting players on Steam link their accounts. However, unlike the initial proposition, the update makes this optional, so you can keep playing on PC without PSN if you don't want to make an account.
It's only been out three months, but Sony has revealed that everyone's favorite extraction shooter has become the fastest-selling PlayStation game ever.
As part of its fiscal year 2023 earnings release, Sony has finally confirmed sales for Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2. It’s sold 12 million units as of May 5th on PS5 and PC, after launching on February 8th for both platforms, as revealed in a recently concluded conference call.
After Helldivers 2 was removed from Steam for 177 countries following the recent PlayStation Network account-linking debacle, fans have been eagerly awaiting updates, especially after Sony reversed course on the account-linking decision. A couple updates did come in today — but not ones that fans were hoping for.
Helldivers 2 director Johan Pilestedt agrees with fans that game balance updates have occasionally gone too far. Helldivers 2 is one of Sony's most popular games right now, and the new Polar Patriots Warbond is out. Because of the game's popularity and recent negative reception to updates, Arrowhead Game Studios' responses to feedback and PlayStation's approach to PC gaming fans have been the topic of frequent discussion.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has released the Polar Patriots Premium Warbond as planned after the boss of the studio polled fans on whether it should go ahead so soon after what he called “negative sentiment” over the game’s PlayStation Network account linking.
Helldivers 2 Community Manager 'Spitz' is seemingly no longer with Arrowhead Game Studios following outings he did over the now-canceled mandatory PSN account linking update.
Fans of Helldivers 2 have started a petition asking developers Arrowhead to reinstate a fired employee in charge of community management. The employee, "Spitz", was let go following the fiasco in which Sony told PC players they would need to link their Steam and PlayStation Network accounts to continue playing the shooter. Sony and Arrowhead changed their mind about that after player backlash in the form of 100,000+ negative reviews on Steam. The kicker? Community manager "Spitz" was low-key encouraging players to continue the review bombing. This doesn't seem to have gone down well internally.