Sony appears to be full throttle on shoving its controversial PlayStation Network account requirements down PC gamers’ throats, despite the mega backlash the company faced recently after trying the lock on Helldivers 2.
God of War Ragnarök, the next PlayStation game heading to PC, carries the same conditions that saw Sony blasted by bad PR from the Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima fandoms.
During the State of Play conference on May 30, Sony announced God of War Ragnarök—the 2022 sequel to 2018’s God of War—will be coming to PC on Sept. 19 this year. The PC release will include all the post-launch content (the Valhalla DLC and the New Game Plus mode) as well as a handful of PC-exclusive bells and whistles, quite similar to what we have seen with prior PlayStation titles on PC. The elephant in the room, however, appears as only a footnote in Sony’s blogpost about the announcement.
The footnote reads, “Account for PlayStation Network is required.” The game’s Steam and Epic Games Store pages also carry the disclaimer, the very same we’ve seen added to Helldivers 2 post-launch and which graced Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut from its first release. This presumably means Ragnarök too will share their fate and will not be available for purchase in the 177 countries and territories where PSN can’t be accessed.
Now, where these games differ, though, is how they incorporate multiplayer elements that could justify Sony’s PSN requirement. Helldivers 2 is a live-service game, and Ghost of Tsushima only requires PSN sign-in to access its co-op. What’s odd about God of War Ragnarök’s PSN push is it’s an entirely singleplayer game.
With Helldivers 2, we saw Sony back down from its PSN demand (although it’s yet to relist the game after it was delisted in 177 countries). It remains to be seen whether the company will have to rethink its approach with Ragnarök today too.
