Helldivers 2 clones are scamming players on Steam
The success of Helldivers 2 has been immense so far, and as the game shows no signs of slowing down, there's little surprise that others are trying to get in on the action. After all, it's not every day that a game can rocket to the top of PlayStation and Steam charts by simply being incredibly fun.
Helldivers 2 has used word of mouth to climb the mountain and become 2024's first "big" game, but with that, a Terminid horde of pale imitations are crawling from the ground. Now, it looks like opportunists trying to get involved have led to some frustrating scams.
Helldivers 2 fakers are scamming would-be fans
In a bid to scam players who are trying to get involved in the game, listings on Steam that mimic the appearance of Helldivers 2 have started to appear. Two indie games popped up on Steam, that to the naked eye, appeared to be the regular listing for Helldivers 2.
Standing as indie games, they had had their metadata changed to appear just like the option to purchase and launch Helldivers 2. Like some new camouflaging enemy, the trick was to appear in Steam searches with a sale price and scam players into paying a reduced fee, when actually, they wouldn't come away with Helldivers 2.
The two games in question are Figurality and Do Not Smile by two seemingly different developers, but as they were both launched on November 4 and both had their metadata changed on March 1, all signs point to the two development teams being run by the same person who is trying to coax players into forking over their cash.
Wario64 on Twitter was among the first to point out the frustrating dupes, and thankfully, it looks like justice has been served.
The Helldivers 2 scams have been removed from Steam
The false games have now been delisted from Steam, but it's a frustrating position for customers to be in. The very fact that a fake like this could be pulled off and left on Steam for a number of hours is alarming.
More concerning, the idea that the metadata could be changed so effectively that the developer can appear as PlayStation PC LLC and send players who click on the name straight to the actual PlayStation page on Steam is a real problem.
Despite Helldivers 2's runaway success, it looks like there's serious work to be done behind the scenes at Steam. At least nobody is getting ripped off anymore (for now), but stay safe out there on your quest for democracy.
