What a wild fall from grace in a short time. After days of frustration and outcry from the community, some are saying that Steam has given full refunds to those who have bought Helldivers 2, even if they have played more than two hours. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are in the world if you request a refund and put that you don’t agree with Sony’s recent sign-in mandate for PC players, Steam will give all of your money back. The Reddit post below is just one example, with the player nearly having 100 hours in the game and getting the full refund.
In the days since Helldivers 2 announced it would soon be requiring all Steam players to link a PlayStation account to play in the future, there has been a lot of talk about how anti-consumer this move is. Even a community manager for Helldivers 2 has voiced their displeasure with the move. Before the announcement, the game was sitting at a “Mostly Positive” rating for Steam reviews but has since dropped significantly due to review bombing. At the time of this writing, 25% of reviews in the last month are positive, leading to a “Mostly Negative” rating in that time, with the overall rating being “Mixed” at 59%.
People are not happy about the new sign-in restriction, unsurprisingly. If you already have a PlayStation account, it’s no problem for you at all. However, things aren’t always as simple as creating a new account. Some areas don’t have access to PSN. Ukraine, in particular, doesn’t allow a person to register for a PlayStation account unless they own a PS4 or PS5, so if they already owned Helldivers 2 there but didn’t have a console, they would have to drop hundreds of dollars to get access to the game again. The game is now no longer being sold in the 177 countries that do not have access to PSN according to a recent restriction put in the game.
Steam giving Helldivers 2 players refunds no matter their location and time played is a really pro-consumer move on their part. You have to figure if it was the other way around, Sony likely would not be doing so. We will see how this affects the game going forward.
