The lack of worldwide availability of Arrowhead Studios’ Helldivers 2 on Steam is due to restrictions from PlayStation, not Valve.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Studios has expressed that it wants the game to be available worldwide on Steam, but there are restrictions in place from PlayStation, not Valve, that prevent it from happening. The studio’s CEO Johan Pilestedt took to the game’s Discord server to explain that the development team had no idea about the recent regional restriction that has been applied to the Steam version. He mentioned that most developers are on a bank holiday, and that they just found out through the community.
Furthermore, Pilestedt provided an update regarding the restriction being applied to three additional countries on Steam more recently. He clarified that it was an administrative error correction, and that those countries should have been part of the original restriction. He added that the error was noticed when the restriction was put in place for Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut.
According to the Arrowhead Studios CEO, the correction was made independently by Valve. He said that while this doesn’t look positive, it is not an indication of further restrictions. Lastly, he mentioned that the conversation on region restrictions is still ongoing and is independent of this error correction. He had no further information on the matter. He expressed that him and the development team still want Helldivers 2 to be available everywhere.
A Steam user who owns Helldivers 2 asked support for a refund. In response, the Valve representative told them that, following Sony’s recent announcement, PSN account linking is no longer required to play the game. Also, They mentioned that the game is not available in specific Steam regions as decided by the publisher, PlayStation. The support representative had no further information to share on the matter. As for the refund, the Steam user was not granted one, as they were told that they had already played the game for more than 58 hours. Likewise, their purchase date was in February, 2024, which is well past the refund window.
