Helldivers 2 players on PC curse galactic game master Joel as PSN outage takes their PS5 brethren out of the Major Order fight for 8 hours: “Hold the line!”

Is there a low Joel won’t stoop to?

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Helldivers 2players on PC are taking the ongoingPSNoutages in their stride by finding a way to incorporate them into the game’s ongoing narrative – and wouldn’t you know it, game master Joel is once again taking the heat.

At the time of writing,Sony’sPSN Service Statusnotes that “some services are experiencing issues” here in the UK - though thesituation seems to be improving in the US. PlayStation Direct is the only service on the list in the green, with others like account management, gaming and social, and more in the red. Of course, you only need to look to social media to find out that much, with some without access to various PlayStation goodness for around eight hours by now.

That’s not ideal for many, especially those currently playing Helldivers 2. The third-person shooter’s whole thing involves players across PC and PS5 coming together to try and accomplish lofty objectives like Major Orders to advance the overall narrative and get cool stuff – sometimes. Getting those objectives over the line often goes down to the wire, so you can imagine how PC players are faring now that their PS5 comrades have essentially been taken offline.

While social media is stuffed with certain diversencouragingothers to hold the line, others are putting forward their best conspiracy theories. Could the outages be the result of anAutomaton DDOS attack? It’s the sort of thing the Ministry of Truth wouldn’t tell you. Others, meanwhile, reckon our D&D-style game master Joel is cookin' up something nasty.

Thankfully, the current Major Order still has three days to run, and variousPS4 and PS5 owners in the US report that PSN is starting to come back online. Hold the line, divers. Help is on the way.

Helldivers 2 player pleads for help after a bot tank eats a 500kg bomb like it’s nothing – accidentally summoning the creative director, who says: “Agree, that should be bye-bye.”

Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

Iain joins the GamesRadar team as Deputy News Editor following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When not helping Ali run the news team, he can be found digging into communities for stories – the sillier the better. When he isn’t pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new hat, you’ll find him amassing an army of Pokemon plushies.

This is why you read Helldivers 2 patch notes closely: a goldfish “was laid to rest” in space where the pressure “caused it to heat up, violently explode, and disintegrate”

Helldivers 2 players are calling the absolutely brutal new major order “unwinnable,” but at least they have the new WW1 gun and its melee bayonet to help them out

Millions of Fortnite players watch Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice livestream a concert as part of a rap-themed Chapter 2 Remix that includes Eminem and a tribute to Juice WRLD