It’s been a rough few days for Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead. Seemingly blindsided by Sony’s attempt to restore the requirement for Steam players to link their game to a PlayStation Network account (which was suspended at launch due to the game’s extensive technical issues), the studio has seen its game subject to a ferocious review bombing campaign, with its recent review score dropping to an “Overwhelmingly Negative” rating.
Now though, the crisis is over. Sony has walked back its plans to force PSN accounts onto Steam players, and those negative Steam reviews are slowly being flipped to positive (though the game’s recent review rating remains at “Mostly Negative”). It seems Arrowhead hasn’t lost its sense of humour over the debacle either. Following up a tweet about how “impressed” he was by the willpower of the Helldivers 2 community, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt shared an “accidental” cape design based on the game’s recent avalanche of negative reviews.
Created by a community member, the cape ‘design’ is based upon the three red lines from Helldivers 2’s recent reviews graph, which, when isolated from the rest of the graph against Steam’s blueish background, looks just like the kind of cape typically worn by Helldivers 2’s fascist cannon fodder. Sharing the cape design, Pilestedt remarked that it was “pretty cool”.
Already in a jubilant mode having convinced Sony to reverse course, the Helldivers 2 community is naturally all for the cape design becoming a real thing. “Do it Pilestedt, it would be a genius play!” wrote reddit user Connect_Atmosphere80 on Reddit, while ObsidianFireg commented “I would wear it would you?” Some community members have even been sharing their own designed based on the review graph, such as this one on reddit, and another below shared in reply to Pilestedt’s tweet.
It certainly wouldn’t be atypical of Arrowhead to incorporate the design into Helldivers 2, although it would be equally understandable if they didn’t want to encourage the community too much. Sony might have fumbled the ball in this case, but fan outrage and entitlement can undoubtedly cause problems of its own. Even this instance saw some unpleasant side effects outside of Helldivers 2, with players review bombing Arrowhead’s other games on Steam, including the original Helldivers, which have no requirements for a PSN account whatsoever.
That said, the community has been as vociferous its positive response to Sony’s change of stance as it was in its initial anger, with both Steam reviewers and reddit users urging players to flip their review scores back to positive. “Gotta get the reviews back! Cmon helldivers!” wrote one Steam reviewer, while Reddit user MuffinLordGuardian posted “Don’t forget to change your Steam reviews back to positive.” Indeed, if Arrowhead was going to commemorate this bizarre moment in Helldivers 2 history, perhaps a cape based upon a restored positive rating would be a better tribute.
