Helldivers 2 Delisted From Steam In Over 150 Countries Without PSN

George Foster · TheGamer ·

4 min read Original article ↗
Two players hugging in Helldivers 2, with a mess of explosions in the background.

George is the Lead News Editor for TheGamer, and has been working in the industry since 2021 after graduating from the University of South Wales with a bachelor's degree in Journalism. He has also previously written for RPG Site, WhatCulture, and PlayStation Lifestyle.

George is an expert on platformers, action games, and fighters, but tends to play as many releases as possible. This hands-on experience lets him dive into gaming communities and follow the latest trends. 

Some of the games George has extensively covered first-hand include Dead Rising, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, Assassin's Creed Shadows, and Ninja Gaiden 4.

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Summary

  • Helldivers 2 has had one of the roughest weeks in gaming history after PlayStation announced that PC players would be required to log into PSN.
  • Considering a lot of areas of the world don't actually have PSN right now, that effectively makes Helldivers 2 unplayable in certain countries.
  • This has been recognised on Steam, with 177 countries now unable to purchase the game at all.

PlayStation's controversial announcement that Helldivers 2 players on PC would be required to sign in to a PSN account (which will make the game unplayable for some) has led to the game being delisted from Steam in over 100 countries.

After spending most of 2024 so far as one of the most popular games of the year (and even one of the best-selling games from PlayStation in recent memory), Helldivers 2 seems set to take one of the biggest falls from grace in gaming history. Just a few days ago, PlayStation announced that PC players on Steam would be required to log into PSN to be able to play the game.

Sony backed this up by claiming it was for player protection, but the Helldivers 2 community wasn't having any of that and took to orbital striking the Steam page with over 180,000 negative reviews over the past few days. To top it all off, players have even reported successfully receiving refunds from Steam despite having far more play time than the standard two-hour limit that is usually enforced.

Helldivers 2's Steam Situation Has Gone From Bad To Worse

As bad as things have been for Helldivers 2 on Steam over the past few days, there's always been a little optimism that PlayStation would realise how badly this has all gone and reverse it. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that certainly doesn't seem like it's happening any time soon since, as shared by the SteamDB Twitter page, Helldivers 2 has now been removed from sale on Steam in over 100 countries.

Just over ten hours ago, Helldivers 2's SteamDB Page was updated to add restrictions on which countries would be able to purchase the game on Steam. Through a very lengthy change log, we can see that a total of 177 countries are now unable to purchase Helldivers 2 on PC, including Bermuda, Ghana, Jamaica, and a whole bunch of others.

Although 177 countries might raise some alarm bells considering there are only 192 in the world, Steam actually has between 240 and 250 due to how it divides certain regions. It's still a very large number of areas in the world no longer being able to purchase Helldivers 2, but it's not quite as scary as it may first seem.

It's not clear if the update comes from Steam or PlayStation, but if it is the latter then it seems like Sony is doubling down on the sign-in requirement.

Going through the list is a little like doing the Countries of the World song from The Animaniacs but with a far more depressing tone. Arrowhead has already made it clear it doesn't agree with the requirement and wants to change it, but we'll have to wait and see how PlayStation responds to the controversy next week and if it reverses the decision altogether. For many, though, it looks like Helldivers 2 is going to be impossible to play on PC.