After Sony U-turned on its controversial decision to force Helldivers 2 PC gamers to account link to PlayStation Network, the game’s community has launched an initiative to drag Steam user reviews out from under rock bottom.
The backlash to Helldivers 2’s PSN account linking mandate saw the game’s Steam user reviews collapse from ‘overwhelmingly positive’ to ‘mostly negative’ after over 200,000 negative reviews flooded the game’s page on Valve’s platform.
The sheer volume of negative reviews left in such a short space of time caused Johan Pilestedt, boss of developer Arrowhead, to tweet: “Ouch, right in the review score.”
But following Sony’s dramatic reversal, the Helldivers 2 community has formed a Major Order of its own, dubbed Operation Clean Up, which encourages players to leave positive reviews that will get the game back to where it belongs on Steam.
The Helldivers subreddit moderation team got the ball rolling with a post that even includes a mock-up of an in-game Major Order message.
“Helldivers; should you choose to accept this major order,” the post begins, “please consider reversing your Steam review. Arrowhead has worked very hard to make this game special, and you the player have shown both Sony and Arrowhead that your voice matters too.
“Let us restore Helldivers 2 on Steam back to its former glory. And let us restore this community back to normal.
“Please reverse any negative reviews you left for any other games that Arrowhead or Sony has worked on. Let’s do better as a community and not do that again.
“Thank you, r/Helldivers mod team.”
Pilestedt had previously tweeted to express his disappointment in review bombing of other Arrowhead games in response to the Helldivers 2 news, including the first Helldivers game and even 2011 action fantasy game Magicka.
Like many of the real Helldivers 2 Major Orders that have corralled tens of thousands of players into battling on certain in-game planets, Operation Clean Up is having a similar effect, with an impressive 72,000 positive reviews left since May 6. Helldivers 2’s recent reviews are now up to ‘mixed’, with overall reviews ‘mostly positive.’
There’s still work to be done, but it seems Operation Clean Up is on track to be a success, which will no-doubt delight the developers at Arrowhead after what has clearly been a difficult week. Still, there may well be a time for Arrowhead to cement recent events in Helldivers lore, if it creates an in-game cape based on the pattern displayed by Steam user reviews.
Meanwhile, Arrowhead today, May 7, released a new Helldivers 2 patch that makes some much-needed fixes. The next Premium Warbond launches on May 9.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
