Helldivers 2 on Steam can't be bought in 177 countries due to PSN linking requirement

Sony's decision this week to require that Helldivers 2 PC players on Steam link their game to a PlayStation Network account is resulting in some major consequences. Valve has now removed the popular third-person sci-fi shooter from developer Arrowhead Game Studios for sale in 177 countries.

That development was revealed by SteamDB in an X (formerly Twitter) post today. The reason is that gamers in those countries cannot currently sign in to a PSN account as Sony doesn't support the online gaming network in those locations. As we have reported earlier, new Helldivers 2 players will need to create a PSN account and link it to their Steam account to play the game starting on Monday, May 6.

On Friday, Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt posted on his own X account that the developer is having discussions "with our partners at PlayStation and trying to find a solution" for this current problem.

In a new post on X today, he reiterated that they are having talks with Sony about this problem, stating "Your voice has been heard, and I am doing everything I can to speak for the community - but I don't have the final say."

Pilestedt also took some of the responsibility for this situation in a follow-up X post, stating

I do have a part to play. I am not blameless in all of this - it was my decision to disable account linking at launch so that players could play the game. I did not ensure players were aware of the requirement and we didn't talk about it enough. We knew for about 6 months before launch that it would be mandatory for online PS titles.

Meanwhile, Helldivers 2 continues to get review-bombed on its Steam page, with players expressing their negative comments on the PSN linking requirement.