Es-caping a PR nightmare.
In the midst of all the firefights and major orders, one of the most notable battles Helldivers 2 players went up against was with the game itself. It came in the form of a review bombing campaign in retaliation for Sony removing Helldivers 2 from sale in 177 countries and territories that don’t have access to PSN.
After reaching some serious lows on its Steam page with over 211,000 negative recent reviews, bringing Helldivers 2 down to “Mixed” status, developer Arrowhead tried its hardest to claw back some of the love: “We are talking solutions with Sony, especially in non-PSN countries,” now-former Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt tweeted. “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.”
This statement actually only made things worse for a time, as many players were frustrated at the apparent deflection of blame. Things only really began to look better for Arrowhead after Pilestedt shared a community post pitching a cape with the review bomb design on it. What started off as a funny ‘what if’ snowballed into a sizable community effort as most players changed their focus from PSN to this stylish cape.
We’ve known that the cape has been in the works for some time now: Pilestedt even shared a small teaser on Twitter. You can only see a small section of the cape, but I’d recognise those scathing red lines (which represent a drop to negative reviews) anywhere. Despite knowing of its existence, players haven’t been able to get their hands on it. They still can’t, but that may be changing soon.
Pilestedt has since taken to Twitter again to confirm that the cape is “done on our end, but we want to find the right time to release it.” I’m not sure what Arrowhead is waiting for, maybe it’ll release the cape as a reward for a future major order, or maybe it’s waiting for any further problems that land the company in hot water. One player suggested in the replies that “releasing it at the same time as relisting the game in other regions would be a good move.” While Sony hasn’t budged an inch on its stance on PSN accounts for other games like God of War Ragnarök’s PC release, we did finally see the company blink and retract its stance for Helldivers 2 players, making this idea possible.
This news also comes in the wake of a moral conundrum that Helldivers 2 players had to face up against—save a hospital full of sick children or get a sweet new weapon. After the surprise reveal that players actually banded together to save the children, Pilestedt also announced that he would be donating $4,311 to the charity Save the Children, as another kind of reward for a job well done.
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