Key Takeaways
- Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition were suddenly delisted from Steam in the UK on September 16, 2026, with no advance warning.
- Users attempting to view the game pages were met with the message: “This item is currently unavailable in your region.”
- Existing owners can still access and play both games — only new purchases are blocked.
- SteamDB records show Helldivers 2 had its purchasing restrictions specifically updated at 7:11pm UTC on September 16, adding the UK, Great Britain, and the Isle of Man to the blocked territories list.
- Sony confirmed it is “aware of an issue” and is working with Valve to fix it — suggesting this was unintentional.
- The incident comes against a backdrop of PlayStation pulling back its PC strategy, with Hermen Hulst confirming in May that future narrative single-player games will remain PS5-exclusive.
- No timeline has been given for when the games will be restored to the UK Steam storefront.
If you’re a PC gamer in the UK who tried to pick up Helldivers 2 or Horizon Forbidden West on Steam this week, you hit a wall. Both games quietly disappeared from the UK Steam store on Wednesday, September 16 — no announcement, no warning, no explanation. Just a greyed-out store page and an error message telling you the title was unavailable in your region. And then, hours later, Sony confirmed what many suspected: something went wrong on the backend.
What Actually Happened
Users started noticing the issue when both Helldivers 2 and Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition stopped appearing normally in UK Steam searches. Clicking through to their store pages returned the same message: “An error was encountered while processing your request: This item is currently unavailable in your region.”
Crucially, this was not a Steam outage or some temporary server hiccup. SteamDB records — the database that tracks changes to Steam’s backend in real-time — show that Helldivers 2 had its purchasing restrictions specifically modified at 7:11pm UTC on September 16, with the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and the Isle of Man explicitly added to the list of territories where the game cannot be purchased or activated. That’s a deliberate configuration change, not a random glitch. Someone or something made that happen.
What also stood out is that some of the Helldivers 2 DLC continued appearing normally in search results even while the base game was blocked. And players who already owned either game could still install and play without any issue — only new purchases were cut off.
Sony’s response came via a statement to VGC: “We are aware of an issue affecting the availability of select titles on Steam in the UK. We are working with Valve to address the issue. We apologise for the inconvenience.” That framing — “an issue,” not a “decision” — strongly implies this was accidental. Either a backend publishing change misfired, or someone hit the wrong regional setting while working on something else.
Why It Raised Eyebrows Immediately
Here’s the thing — in a vacuum, this kind of accidental delisting would be a mildly embarrassing technical error and nothing more. But this didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in the middle of one of the most loaded periods for PlayStation’s relationship with PC gaming in years.
Earlier in 2026, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst had told staff in a company town hall that Sony’s narrative single-player games would now remain PlayStation-exclusive going forward. No more delayed PC ports for titles like Ghost of Yotei or Saros. The stated reasons were that PC releases were “inconsistent” in revenue, weren’t generating enough return, and that Sony wants its IPs aligned to its own platform to protect hardware sales and brand identity. Multiplayer and live-service titles — like Helldivers 2 and Marathon — would still come to PC, but single-player flagship games are being locked back down.
Add to that Sony’s July 2026 announcement that it’s ditching physical media entirely by January 2028 — meaning all future games sold purely digitally — and the company’s general direction has become increasingly clear. It’s tightening control, narrowing where its games appear, and pulling back from the broad multi-platform openness it had been experimenting with since 2020.
So when two of its biggest PC titles vanish from UK Steam without a word? People noticed. The timing isn’t great for Sony’s credibility on PC-related communications.
The Accidental Delisting Theory
That said, the most straightforward explanation here is still a screw-up. A few things point toward that. First, Helldivers 2 is Sony’s most successful PC game by a significant margin — it would be a strange choice to deliberately delist it anywhere, especially in the UK alone, when it’s also a live-service title with Sony still actively updating and supporting it on PC. Second, Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition is a single-player game that has already been on PC for years — there’s no obvious business reason to suddenly restrict it in one specific territory without any announcement. Third, only the UK (plus Isle of Man) was affected — not Europe, not globally. That regional specificity doesn’t fit the profile of a planned strategic move.
The most plausible scenario is that someone was adjusting regional publishing configurations in Valve’s backend — possibly related to pricing, promotions, or some other territory-based change — and accidentally toggled the wrong setting, accidentally adding the UK to the restricted purchase list for both titles. These things happen, and they’re usually fixed within a day or two once identified.
As of writing, both games remain unavailable for purchase in the UK. Sony has not given a timeline for when the issue will be resolved, only confirming they’re “working with Valve” on it.
This Keeps Happening with Sony and Steam
It’s worth remembering that this isn’t the first time Helldivers 2 specifically has been at the center of a Steam availability controversy. Back in 2024, Sony’s attempt to retroactively require PSN account linking for PC players caused Helldivers 2 to be delisted across over 170 countries that lacked official PSN support. That episode was handled poorly, created a massive backlash, and contributed to Sony eventually walking back the PSN requirement — though the regional restrictions took time to untangle.
The broader Bungie situation also looms in the background here. With Destiny 2 shut down, Marathon underperforming, and Sony under real scrutiny about its PC strategy, the relationship between PlayStation and PC gaming is in a particularly fragile state right now. Any accidental move that looks like a deliberate pulling-back is going to be interpreted through that lens immediately.
What This Means for UK Players Right Now
If you already own Helldivers 2 or Horizon Forbidden West on Steam, you’re fine. Both games remain playable from your library — nothing has been removed, and your existing access is unaffected. The only people impacted are those who hadn’t yet purchased the games and wanted to buy them during this period.
If you’re waiting to pick either title up, the best move right now is to hold off until the listings are restored. Given Sony’s statement and the accidental nature of the change, it should be a relatively quick fix once Valve and Sony’s publishing teams get on the same page. How quickly that happens, though, is still unknown.
On the broader picture — with this fall being one of the most competitive release windows in gaming history, and Sony navigating a genuinely complicated moment for its relationship with PC players, the last thing the company needed was this kind of unforced error generating suspicion. The fix being simple doesn’t make the optics any better. November is coming fast, and confidence in digital storefronts and access to games you’ve paid for is very much something players are paying attention to right now.
