After Sony announced that Helldivers 2 would reintroduce its PSN account requirement for PC players, dealing with the ensuing fallout, and then backpedaling to a surprising degree, some have blown off the steam with a joke version of a Helldiver cape. Its design? The ridiculously steep negative review chart from Steam.
Notably, Helldivers 2 went from enjoying a ‘Mostly Positive’ review rating to ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’ on Steam over the course of just a few days. The community had numerous qualms with the PSN requirement, the most egregious of which is the fact that Sony’s PlayStation Network service straight-up isn’t available in a huge number of countries hosting Helldivers 2 players.
Had Sony moved on with its initial plan, all of them would be effectively locked out of the game, but this thankfully didn’t come to pass. Still, it did result in some wild moments, like Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt commenting on an “accidental” cape design from a community member, commemorating the brief review-score dip.
Scoredivers
Now, with the biggest problems seemingly behind us, Pilestedt seems to at least have a good humor about the situation. A community member’s cape design essentially lifts the last couple of days’ of the game’s Steam reviews to come up with an oddly aesthetic look, and it reached Pilestedt on Twitter.
While Pilestedt could just be joking around at Arrowhead’s own expense, some replies are sparking hope this cape might become reality. He mentions, at one point, that the team is talking about a good name for the design “right now.” And players do seem eager to see it added, too.
Seasoned Helldivers 2 players will know that this wouldn’t be the first time that Arrowhead organically commemorated a special event with a unique cape design. Early in April, the community fought a difficult round of sorties against the Automaton forces on Malevelon Creek, and the planet ended up becoming a community meme as the war went on, which Arrowhead signed off on with Fallen Hero’s Vengeance.
The precedent certainly exists, then, and Arrowhead doesn’t appear to be beyond such things in any sense, though commemorating a real-life fiasco is a little different from an in-game accomplishment. But with the problems mostly sorted out – note that the game is still not available in select regions on Steam – players can once again look forward to Helldivers 2‘s next Premium Warbond, the Polar Patriots DLC.
It remains to be seen whether the community will be quite so eager to jump back into the game, of course. Helldivers 2‘s Steam review rating is still fairly abysmal at this time, even though some players are calling for all the negative reviews to be changed back into positive ones. Some are bound to leave a negative review for good, but it’s good to see the community in a lighter mood after the last couple of days.
