Update: After initial excitement from Arrowhead CEO, Johan Pilestedt, over a gag amongst the Helldivers 2 community, it looks like the studio has gone ahead and actually created a “Steam Review Bomb” cape for use within the game.
Pilestedt had previously teased that the idea could be made real after fans first started pointing out that the wave of negative Steam reviews – in the wake of a since-reversed decision from PlayStation to make PSN logins mandatory on PC – would make for quite a striking cape design, but has more recently shared an image on X that make it look as though it’s become official:
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 11, 2024
There’s no word yet around when or how this cape will be released, though you’d assume it will be free. With players in 170+ countries still left in the dark in the fallout of the PSN login debacle, having had the game removed from sale in regions where PSN is not available with no sign of it being reinstated, perhaps it’s best saved for a resolution there.
Original Story 7/5: After the debacle over the past days – which saw Helldivers 2 review bombed to hell and back on Steam following the reveal that PSN account linking would become mandatory on the PC version of the game, and Sony most recently backtrack on the decision – the game’s community saw the opportunity to make light of the whole situation by proposing new in-game cape designs that proudly display the bar graph of negative Steam user reviews in a very fitting way. And because this game has no chill, the idea might just become ratified after all.
It didn’t take long before Arrowhead caught wind of the gag and its CEO, Johan Pilestedt, shared one of the designs in a post on X. This quickly prompted follow-up from the community asking if the design, or something like it, would actually make it into the game and based on Pilestedt’s responses it does seem as though it’s going to become a thing.
Also, the accidental cape design is pretty cool. From a community member. pic.twitter.com/7LQZA6Rekw
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 6, 2024
“We getting this one for free I hope?” one user asked, with the CEO joking that it would be “$999.99 easy” before saying “it will ofc be free.” Pilestedt also revealed that the team is already in discussions about what to name the cape. Quite a few admittedly cool-looking takes on the design have cropped up as well, with many playing on the fact that the bars look an awful lot like Helldivers 2’s drops raining down from the heavens.
Not gonna lie, i’d rock that Accidental Cape Design
byu/mjbga04 inHelldivers
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise to see the studio take the slightly funny/more cruel route and hand the cape out to folks who link their PSN accounts to the game on PC, but fingers crossed that if real it goes out to everybody. And while that’s all a lot of fun, there’s still seemingly no answer from Steam, Sony or Arrowhead on whether the 170+ countries where the game was delisted from Steam as part of the changes would see it reinstated.
