PlayStation gamers furious as free downloads pulled with no warning

PlayStation Stars is finally set to return, hurrah.

In fact, it may have already returned to your territory. Users in Asia have reported regaining access.

A regional rollout is planned. It’s believed Europe, Australia and New Zealand will follow next, and then the Americas.

Of course, PlayStation Stars is PlayStation’s free rewards service that allows users to earn points via easy campaigns and for all purchases made on the PlayStation Store.

Eventually, these points can be turned into free store credit.

If you attempted to venture over to the PlayStation Stars segment of the app in the last few weeks though, you’ll have been met with the following message: “PlayStation Stars is currently experiencing issues. Our engineers are aware of the issue and are working on a solution.”

Now, this message has been replaced by, “PlayStation Stars will be returning soon in phased regional rollouts. Thank you for your patience and we look forward to welcoming you back,” unless you’ve already regained access of course.

Naturally, users are keen to know what’s come of the points and collectibles they should’ve earnt while the service was down.

ICYMI: Astro Bot is set to launch on PlayStation 5 on 6 September. Take a look at the game’s trailer below.

If you’ve made PlayStation Store purchases during the outage period, those points should have been added on to your account.

If you do not see them, you’re urged to visit customer services.

If you’re awaiting receival of the Days of Play Community Challenge digital collectible, you can find this on the ‘Rewards’ tab. Simply press redeem.

What’s left fans furious though is the fact that this year’s Days of Play campaigns were largely unavailable for many of us to access and complete as the event timed up almost perfectly with the outage.

You’d think then that PlayStation may extend these campaigns so we can try and gain those bonus collectibles and points.

That’s not the case though unfortunately.

“As Days of Play is over, the Campaigns specific to Days of Play are no longer active. The Days of Play scene for your Display Case is still available, should you select it,” reads an official FAQ.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound as if there’s anything in the way of compensation either.

“So basically, there was no chance to do the Days of Play campaign,” wrote one outraged user.

“So we missed out on collectibles through no fault of our own,” said another.

“Really screwed up they aren’t properly helping those who couldn’t do Days of Play stuff due to Sony taking so long to fix this. Pretty scummy actually,” read one comment.

It’s a shame the return of PlayStation Stars isn’t quite as joyous as we’d hoped.