After Scrapping the Free Cosmetic Due to PSN Controversy, Arrowhead CEO May now Reconsider the Decision

With the recent victory of the Helldivers 2 community, it may happen that we get a free cosmetic, an idea that was scrapped due to the whole PlayStation situation.

On Friday, May 3, PlayStation announced that a Play Station Network account is mandatory in order to keep playing the game. That decision sparked an outrage among the community, mostly due to a lot of players not having access to PSN. Players responded by review-bombing the game, to make their dissatisfaction known to the publisher. During the whole weekend, everyone was on the edge, waiting to see what would happen.

A Free Cosmetic Was Planned for PSN Linking

The next day after the announcement, May 4, the situation went out of control. The rating of Helldivers 2 on Steam has bombed and went from positive to negative. Moreover, a lot of players asked for refunds. 

During all that, one of Arrowhead’s Community Managers, Spitz, revealed that a free cosmetic (we assume the cosmetic in question is a Cape) was planned for all those who linked their Steam and PSN accounts. But, due to the whole idea backfiring and the future of the game being uncertain at that point, the whole idea was scrapped. 

Helldivers 2 Community United Under a Symbol

The whole PSN controversy proved one thing: Helldivers 2 has a healthy and united community. Slogans like “We dive together or we don’t dive” and similar ones have begun circulating the social networks. Images of the Helldivers 2 statistics, with three long red lines going downward, representing the drop in ratings were shared all around. Soon people started adding Hellpods to those lines, and that became an unofficial symbol of the Helldivers 2 “resistance”.

Arrowhead CEO Liked the Fan-Made Idea for a Cape

On May 6, PlayStation decided to pull back the requirement for a PSN account. The whole community was ecstatic, and the “flag” of the movement, three red lines on a blue background, was shared everywhere, as a symbol of victory. So much so that Johan Pilestedt, the CEO of Arrowhead liked the “accidental cape design”, shared by an unknown community member.

Since this is a great victory both for the community and Arrowhead Studios, it would not be impossible for this design to be turned into an actual Cape and given freely (like the Malevelon Creek Memorial Cape) to the players, as a way to commemorate this whole event.

For now, the negative reviews are getting replaced with positive ones, and the hype for the game is back. We have no info on whether this new cape idea will actually happen but is not unknown for Arrowhead to reward their players for their efforts. We hope we will see soon enough.