Developer Arrowhead has taken a lighthearted approach to a challenging moment in its game’s history by gifting players of Helldivers 2 a unique in-game cape. This cape serves as a tribute to the game’s review-bombing episode that abruptly flipped player sentiment against the otherwise well-received title.
The commemorative cape features a frequency graph visually representing the tide of positive and negative reviews during the review-bombing. The cape’s design includes small light blue bars symbolizing positive feedback, which are dwarfed by the red bars for negative comments. This initiative, which was first hinted at over a year ago, is finally being rolled out to all players.
Following the launch of Helldivers 2 in early 2024, a controversial decision by publisher Sony to require PC players to create or link a PlayStation Network account led to outrage. The backlash from the gaming community prompted a mass review-bombing campaign against the title. Fortunately, the players’ resistance paid off, leading to the reversal of Sony’s decision.
Despite a temporary decline in reviews during that period, the game’s community rallied to boost its ratings, and the Steam reviews have since bounced back. Arrowhead has worked diligently to restore the game’s reputation, recently implementing content updates that have reinvigorated player engagement, achieving peak concurrency of nearly 200,000 players last month.
The launch of the Heart of Democracy update appears to have played a significant role in the game’s resurgence, marking a successful return to form for Helldivers 2.
