Former Helldivers 2 writer is astonished by the monster he helped create, as he describes how the game's approach to storytelling led to the community's showdown with Sony: 'We trained them to fight together. And then they fought together'

When it comes to live-service storytelling, Helldivers 2 has pushed the concept into uncharted territory. Not only has it found a way to keep players constantly engaged without disappearing up its own lore-hole, its fiction is so effective that the story has spilled out into the real world. Earlier this month, when Sony tried to reinstate Playstation Network account linking for Steam users, the community united beneath the games' satirical banner of freedom and democracy to review-bomb it until the publisher changed its mind (which it did).