Steam Takes on Games Faking Helldivers 2, Palworld, and Other Hits
The success of Helldivers 2 and Palworld has been exploited by dishonest developers who have tried to sell their games as these and other well-known productions.
The start of the year brought many unexpected hits. Unfortunately, as is typical, scammers quickly appeared, attempting to exploit the popularity of these productions. The devs of Helldivers 2 warned against the appearance of three titles impersonating their game on Steam. Fortunately, Valve quickly responded to the developers' report, and within an hour, all these titles disappeared from the platform (via Discord).
It probably doesn't need explaining that the creators of such projects prey on naive or inattentive users, and the content of these games can even contain harmful software. These are probably not the last such "titles," so let's reiterate what the developers say - the only real releases on Steam are Helldivers 2 and Helldivers 2: Super Citizen Edition.
This procedure affected not only the co-op shooter of Arrowhead Game Studios. As Internet users noticed (via Wario 64 on X), some games on Steam changed their titles to "Helldivers 2" or "Palworld." Escape from Tarkov, which has never been seen on this platform, was also spotted by one internet user (via X).
For instance, players could come across a special offer for the first of these productions... only that it was previously sold as Figurality and with a completely different description (via SteamDB). If anyone has doubts about the devs' intentions, well, the review of one of the unfortunate buyers reveals the name under which "Helldivers 2" is installed. Let's just say that the "developer" didn't show subtlety.
It's possible to wonder how such a bold scam went unnoticed by Valve. We can only assume that the scrutiny of titles that have been on Steam for a longer period is somewhat less strict than for new games. However, it's still a significant oversight on the part of the platform owner.
Fortunately, it appears that Valve is already aware of this practice and is removing these games from the store. These incidents will probably result in more changes on Steam to remove such "creative" game editions.
Nevertheless, for now we recommend caution. Before purchasing a game on Steam, pay attention to the release date, the number of reviews, and the tags.
