The year-long fight between Helldivers 2's players and Sony seemingly ends with a victory for Super Earth

3 weeks ago 2

Summary

Sony removed region locks on Helldivers 2 and other titles, allowing broader access worldwide.
Negative reviews from prior region locks prompt a community-led effort to change or remove them.
Players excitedly welcome the removal of region locks to join the cooperative, multiplayer game.

Smell that? That's the sweet, sweet scent of victory, my friend. After a year of fighting against Sony's region locks, Helldivers 2 players are celebrating a big win after the gaming giant has seemingly removed them. And if what's being said is to be believed, pretty much all of Sony's published PC titles have been released from their shackles once more.

Helldivers 2 fans rejoice as Sony reverts its huge region lock

The fight began around a year ago when Sony demanded that Helldivers 2 players need a PlayStation Network (PSN) account to play the game on PC, even if they had zero intention of playing it on a PlayStation console. As you might expect, people weren't happy about tying their game to a system they may never use again, and Helldivers 2 caught a nasty review bomb as a result.

Sony eventually rolled that change back, but maintained a region lock that prevented people from 177 countries from purchasing the game, on the grounds that gamers from said countries couldn't make a PSN account. And while the PSN requirement was gone, people were still miffed that potential players couldn't help defend Super Earth purely because of the country they live in.

Flash forward to today, and X user Wario64 makes a post identifying a huge change in the blocked region list of Sony-published PC titles (thanks for the spot, GamesRadar). That list of 177 blocked countries was knocked down to just eight: Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Japan, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam. And yes, Helldivers 2 was included in this wave of changes.

Of course, the player base was elated to hear that previously-affected people could now hop in and play again; however, there were still the lingering negative reviews from the bomb the community dropped. As such, the Helldivers 2 playerbase took to the game's official Reddit page to ask people to remove or change their negative reviews as part of a community-led Major Order.

If the Sony region lock left you high and dry, now's the perfect time to hop in and help defend Super Earth with your fellow Helldivers. And if this is the first time you've heard of that game, check out our sister site TheGamer's review of Helldivers 2, where it scored an impressive 4 out of 5.