One of the bigger stories in 2024 is how Helldivers 2 exploded in popularity to such a degree that Arrowhead decided to postpone a pre-planned PSN login requirement on PC. When the developer eventually attempted to enforce the feature, the Internet imploded, leading to such a fierce review bombing campaign that PlayStation was forced to backtrack.
While it’s extremely common for titles to mandate account logins like this, one legitimate bugbear many PC players have had is that PSN technically isn’t available in a number of countries. This resulted in Helldivers 2 being removed from sale in select unsupported regions on Steam, pouring more salt on the wounds for fuming fans.
Consequently, it’s not exactly sitting well with enthusiasts that both God of War Ragnarok and Until Dawn appear to require PSN logins as well – especially seeing as they’re both single player games. While there’s no information on Concord yet, we’d expect the team-based first-person shooter to fall to a similar fate.
Social media is awash with criticism of Sony for making this decision, and we’d certainly agree that it needs to solve this issue of PSN not being available in a number of different countries. Obviously, it’s always been possible to make accounts in other regions, but technically this is against the terms of service – even if it’s a rule the manufacturer rarely enforces.
[source store.steampowered.com, via store.steampowered.com]
Comments 106
I don't care about ragebait that streamers and youtubers use to pump up their view count. The vast majority of players will make an account and consider it a slight annoyance
Literally a non issue that was hugely overblown cause of the Helldivers situation.
Its tough *****. EA, Steam, MS, xbox, Epic, google, Amazon, Netflix, Disney etc all do it. You want to view or play their content you need to abide by their terms and create an account. Either create an account or dont buy the game. Its that simple.
Taking a game away from people after they have paid for it and put time in to it is one thing i dont agree on but stating you need an account before a game is released is fair game.
With ghost of tsushima being the biggest single player release on steam, Sony got the last laugh.
Let them fume, love to see it!
More whining for the sake of whining.
Is this really a big deal? Seems so minor with how many sign ins people have nowadays
How will Sony expand their PC reach when they shove this mandatory PSN requirement, basically preventing 60% of the market to enter?
@CWill97 PSN is region locked. Having it mandatory means that pc users in many countries can’t even buy the game
@Kidfunkadelic83 The biggest issue is that PSN isn't available in A LOT of countries (including some EU countries). Basically gatekeeping those games for a lot of players.
Where EA, Steam, MS / XBOX, Epic, Google and Amazon are available almost everywhere.
Also forcing users who already have a launcher and an account to yet install another launcher and create another account is just stupid. Including with Sony's former lack of security / hacks on PSN. I absolutely agree that you wouldn't want that (forced) on PC.
One way or another they will end up making an account.
Don't want to? Don't buy the games. Want to review bomb a single player game? You need to but the game first and don't return it LOL. If Sony was desperate for that money the requirement wouldn't be there and "bad" sales (people are going to buy this yes or yes cry rivers included) will help the current strat to not change.
Why does Pushsquare layout turn red for this article? Is it because the topic is about PC, not PS5?
for a simple account linking when they already have linked Ubisoft, Rockstar, Microsoft, EA and others
Suck it up!! Funny how pc gamers belittle the consoles. But deep down they really want to play the amazing games the likes of Sony produce. Create an account, simple really lol 😆
@Solingo_Bill You don't get it.
Imagine you have Steam account your registered in your country. You invest money to buy games.. and then Sony releases great games and you are not allowed to buy them with your steam account.
Understandable that is small part of gaming community, but still those are 180+ countries/regions.
Most of Helldivers 2 playerbase has linked accounts, it is stated by Helldivers ex CEO.
@Savage_Joe do you have any sources that it's 60% of the market? If it's true, then it really is a big deal.
@The_Elder it's always the case when they talk about God Of War on PC from I've what I've seen.
I find the disparity between the comments on this site and literally everywhere else fascinating. I love how everyone here is saying “just suck it up, you had to do it for all these other companies, why you complaining now.” Completely ignoring that they did complain about that, and that forcing players to sign up for a service they don’t want despite their being no reason to do so, is a trashy practice that shouldn’t be defended. Has the system broken you this badly?
A very sad minority. Everything requires a login. Don’t like it don’t buy the game. In fact don’t buy the majority of games from big publishers. I hope Sony don’t relent. They also need to let people get an account in all countries though.
I mentioned it in one of the other articles. I bought an ROG Ally last year and spent the best part of a day installing launchers, signing up to new stuff, resetting passwords on old PC accounts. While it would’ve been nice to avoid, it wasn’t an issue. Why is this suddenly the biggest problem in gaming?
I get it tbh. I think that stuff is absolutely annoying.
It makes sense for us on the Playstation to have a PSN account.
But I hate getting an account for every publisher.
Multi player - dont have a problem at all - everyone else does this and it does allow Sony some control over cheaters and hate, which sounds like a good thing.
Just waiting for Sony to announce PSPlus subscription required on PC to play lol!
Single player - not sure i really agree with it (and not 100% sure Sony intend to include single player in this, tho I agree thats how it appeared, but if so they have been up front with it). If its true I only imagine sales for non PSN countries are expected to be very low.
Are there legal reasons to do with data protection that stops Sony setting up PSN in these countries??
@Jireland92 It has I think. I find the lack of empathy or consumer concern here disappointing. You’ll see a lot of comments on the site about people complaining too much about Sony, like they’re a football team that needs our constant moral support.
@SoulChimera entitlement. That's all there is to it. And the more they succeed with boycotts like they did with Helldivers II, the more entitled they get. Same with ps+
@sanderev you can make a free PSN account easily for any country, even without a VPN, so that's not really an issue.
If people are complaining because they don't want to set up a PSN account. Tough ****. Grow up. Everything needs an account/login these days.
If people are complaining because PSN isn't available in their country and therefore can't buy the game at all, then that's a genuine complaint.
Either log in or **** off!
Gets PlayStation games on PC and whinges about having a Sony login. Peak ENTITLED gamers. I usually hate the phrase but this is it.
Sony does need to enable PSN in more countries however.
@tameshiyaku That doesn't really work if you want to buy the game on steam and it's not offered there in your country because of PSN. Also it's against Sony's and Valve's TOS .
So NO, that is NOT a solution.
The_Elder wrote:
It’s when gamer rage more is enabled… or it should be
@sanderev Plenty of games on Steam have country restrictions,
it’s not unique to Sony games at all.
I know we are PlayStation fanboys, but this is a dumb decision from Sony.
People who weren’t in countries where PSN is available, you know most of the countries on earth, they got locked out of a game they paid for or banned by Sony for trying to make accounts in other countries.
Then only countries with the game were allowed meaning only 71 countries out of 191 countries could play the game.
You can’t say you are “For the Players” when you literally disallow most countries to play your games because of a silly corporate decision.
And it’s sad we have the majority on here seemingly call them “PC whiners” and the like, when they are protecting their fellow gamers.
Sony should implement the option of PSN login with the incentive of maybe free in game items. But let people choose whether or not they do it. That way those in countries where PSN isn’t available can still access the game.
The login is only for marketing anyway. They want their email to push future products. It’s a corporate thing.
Why defend corporate greed over allowing others to game? Especially as the countries without PSN are some of the poorer countries.
Lot of gamers are so annoying these days 😔. This 'issue' isn't a Sony problem only. It's pretty common...
Sony should stick to their guns this time and not give in to those over entitled PC bunch. They have to have accounts everywhere else. And if they want to play PlayStation games so bad as they scream about exclusivity then they'll suck it up or miss out. Put them to the test, how bad did they really want to play Sony's games? Because let's face it, they're the biggest whingers of the entire platforms combined.
Ghost of Tsushima seems to be doing well enough on PC with the same requirements.
This sounds the same as that whole "boycott Hogwarts" thing.
Do PC gamers ever stop crying? Time to put on your big boy pants.
Just put down my steam deck to read this…. Was just playing Forza Horizon 5…. It forced me to use my Xbox log in - where is the rage over that…….
Normal Bias rage.
Insane this is what they complain about, I love pc gaming, and PlayStation gaming. How many games have launchers and Microsoft sign ups.
Self importance, it’s everywhere
@Stocksy exactly, well said. Making something out of nothing
@Jireland92 no, we just don't all wear tin hats. Suck it up!
Is it really that difficult to do?
Just now, using the iPad, I signed into my own PSN account.
It is simple and it’s free.
Are they asking you join PS Plus as well, in order to play these games on PC?
Are Sony asking you to pay more for it?
No. And No.
Quit moaning. If you are that upset over it, just buy a PS5 like everybody else.
As I said before the plan was PSN registration all along. The previous debacle was due to them releasing games in regions that weren’t on Sony/PSN road map. They likely use PSN to track user engagement and metrics so it makes sense that they are pushing for their exclusive games to require it. If that doesn’t work then buy a PS5 to play the games.
And in the ultimate irony they are perfectly playable on a PlayStation console without logging in to PSN.
I think the only issue is that they should make PSN more widely available. But other than that, it's perfectly okay to make it a requirement to do a PSN log-in. Weren't they going to start including trophies in their PC versions? I think that's worth it.
@Matthewnh "It's simple and free" when it's available in your country. It's not in most countries . That's the issue. That you can sign in using your iPad really has nothing to do with it.
As an occasional PC player, all I can say is this is just a bunch of bo**ocks by frustrated people needing excuse to rage and youtubers making up a story to spike their channel viewership. There is no problem!
The fact that this will cut many country from which steam users can buy the games is crazy, sony care more about collecting your psn data rather than selling games 😕
@Matthewnh Joining psn also means agreeing to their TOS, which means they can ban you from things that you can do on steam, but not from psn. Most pc gamers rather have not buying sony games (or getting it on high seas) rather than joining psn on their pc.
Fake outrage means people will eventually take nobody seriously and 'consumer power' will simply fritter away.
Requiring a PSN log-in is exactly the same as all the other publishers who also require a sign up to their service, no different at all. If you don't want to sign up, don't play the games, simple.
Really only annoying for those who have to use a VPN to play the games.
@sanderev I know it's not an official solution and annoying, but it's a functioning workaround until psn is supported in affected countries. And as far as I can see nobody has ever been penalized for doing so. I wouldn't see a reason why Sony would even bother. I'm EU based and have a Japanese account as well and it's always been alright.
@DonkeyFantasy so all the people in countries where PSN is not available and will be unable to play these games should be ignored?
Well you’re a piece of work.
@Savage_Joe oh I had no clue. That friggen blows.
In the case off Helldivers 2 i agreed with outrage,but this just ridicolous. We all have ea,ubi,acti-blizz,epic,rockstar. Valve literary made this a thing with Half-Life 2,download steam client or move along,lord Gaben start it all.
@Kienda i mean the " for the players " is just a marketing tag line. if the game was on ps5 , those people in those countries wouldn't be able to play those games either. i'm just guessing they want to require trophies for their games on pc , which means they would need to have a psn account. so at the end of the day they would have never had access to those games either way. i just feel like its just fake outrage to be upset over nothing. why isn't psn allowed there in the first place is my question?
People have no trouble creating accounts for adult websites, even circumventing bans and restrictions in their own countries with VPN’s.
Many also have no issue creating Japanese Sony or Nintendo accounts to access titles that aren’t available in the UK and US.
So I struggle to accept the arguments against this. So long as the requirement is made clear before purchasing, they have no grounds to complain.
As a PC gamer I want system’s that involve signing into MS or Sony accounts, as I like earning achievements and having cross save progression. I want to go full steam ahead with such integration.
I also avoid multiplayer gaming on PC as it’s infested with cheats, so a system that allows for users to be banned, wiping out their single player game library at the same time and inflicting a painful cost on them, is most welcome.
Awww poor PC players, my heart goes out to all those affected by this 😥.
Not. Some people need to man up and stop crying over the stupidest of things.
Cry me a river?
@Kidfunkadelic83 100%
No one cared about "other countries" not having PSN for for nearly 20 years until it became point they can use as ammo in console wars
No one worries that using a VPN to watch streaming services "violates ToS" they just do it and the companies dont really care cause they get money.
@REALAIS @TheOfflineGamer @sanderev I live in one of those countries and I made a US PSN account years ago. It's not hard. I know 4 other friends in the Caribbean who did the same thing. There are tutorials online.
No one cared about "other countries" not having PSN for for nearly 20 years until it became a point they can use as ammo in console wars
To be fair, the fact that a PSN account can be made in one of those 180 countries isn't the issue. The issue is that Valve and other launchers DO recognize that they're not in the correct region. That's why they're locked out. That's why people are upset
Requiring a PSN access is not the real problem - it's easily solvable by making a PSN account in a country where PSN exists.
Removing the games from the official stores in the countries where PSN is not available, that's the worst decision Sony is actually making.
Most likely those people will turn to alternate methods to play the single player parts of those games - just because rules like "service access only in select countries" exist.
Where's the win in that, Sony ? Microsoft? Rest of y'all oyster heads in the same boat?
To people who don't see this as an issue please reconsider this. These are single player there is absolutely no reason on earth they should require an account. Atleast with helldivers you could make the argument the account is beneficial in the idea of future cross progression but single player games have no need for this and its gonna ruin the game for future preservation. It's like Microsoft required an account to play hifi rush on ps5.
There is no reason and should require it. We should not just accept it even if we are Playstation fans. If we can get mad at Microsoft for requiring an account for sea of theives we should also call out Sony for this aswell.
Loud minority who forget they needed Xbox accounts forever to play Xbox ports. Also why is the site red now?
Ok, I get people who can't access the game because PSN is unavailable being angry. But people you can access PSN not wanting to sign up to one more account 'just because' are making a mountain out of a molehill.
Why would they be fumin, they could just go about their day and forget it exists. I'm just happy it's coming to pc. I played until dawn on PS4, I might pick it up again on pc. But I won't pay full price coz I played it already.
@themightyant
I'd say peak dumb gamers, they could wait one more year and get the game on GoG since Sony also release their single player games there.
Maybe I'm reading the headline of the article wrong but why are they fuming specifically until dawn over God of War: Ragnarök?
@Malaise ha! That's pretty cool!
Most PC gamers are snow flakes
Boohoo
@__jamiie 'Everything needs an account/login these days.'
Sort of true. And at the same time, the further spawning of account requirements is exactly the problem.
Maybe there's a difference between needing an account for an ongoing service (e.g. Netflix, or PSN if you're a PS4 owner) which seems fair enough and gives me various benefits, and software publishers requiring gamers to create an account to play an individual game (which doesn't).
Imagine if we were to have a PSN account, yet for every single game we either bought from the store or downloaded from PlayStation Plus we had to create an account for that particular publisher before you could even play the game?
Wouldn't that be incredibly annoying?
I just don't understand why it needs to be a requirement for offline experiences. I can understand optional for those who want to use Sony's overlay for Trophies and stuff, but it should still just be optional.
The online portion totally makes sense - use Sony servers, login to Sony services.
Sony is making a big mistake here. It's easy to sit here and say "suck it up" but Sony ventured into the PC space as part of a financial strategy. If that financial strategy isn't paying off because it's thumbing its nose at the customer's it's trying to appeal to, a different strategy may be necessary that won't be as pleasant as porting games to a wider market.
Looking forward to outrage when they are only available via playstation PC store
@GamingFan4Lyf Thing is it working. ghost of tsushima is there best selling game to date on stream. The loud mouths crying about PSN requirements is very much a minority.
See PC gamers seem to be complaining again.
Wouldn’t happen if Sony didn’t release PS games onto PC in the first place though.
Pretty sure that they are still port begging for FFXVI and VII Remake Rebirth and will probably complain if same thing happens with them
I’m a pc player, but I don’t fit the clickbait narrative of this story, as I’m far from raging. I’m happy that even more ps exclusives are making their way to my platform of choice. Roll on Spider-Man 2
@DonkeyFantasy maybe for you it's an inconvenience but not for others. Because of the psn account being needed now some countries will not get the chance to play it because you cant make a psn account in that region. And even if it is just an inconvenience it doesn't mean we should just brush it off. If you ordered some food in a restaurant and they said ok well do that but first we're gonna to completely mess up your order and then bring you out what you actually asked for would you just shove it off or would you say why can't I just have the food I ordered rather than having this inconvenience happen first?
@knowles2 With Ghost of Tsushima, only the online portion has the requirement where the single player portion is optional.
That's how it should be.
Most publishers don't have an account requirement for offline games. There may be an option to login for those who want to, but it can be overly ignored.
I am happy Ghost of Tsushima resonated - it's a masterpiece - but PC gamers don't care about Sony. They care about a great game. And if the Sony business aspect of things start getting in the way of enjoying those games, PC gamers will tell Sony to [expletive] off.
@VaultGuy415 it's easy to say that when you are not in one of the countries (170+ of them) who can't create one
@Kienda
This is literally a lie, no one got banned or access to the game revoked. The moderator of the Helldivers reddit is in vietnam(no longer purchasable there) and he has no issues playing. No one that bought the game losses access.
The countries that currently can't purchase it represent less than 5% of the steam player base, it's unfortunate and I hope it gets resolved, but it's not the majority of the world by actual players.
Lots of misinformation in these comments. It's not a launcher, or even something you need to sign-in to for a game session. It's a one time link at the Steam level. One time per steam account, not even once per game.
Yes it's technically against the TOS to put wrong data(location) into your psn account. That means you can also get banned technically if your DOB or name is wrong. I have a fake name on PSN, fake name and wrong DOB on Steam. I have no fear of getting banned.
While it is unfortunate the games can't be purchased in some regions, you can still play the games in those regions on your normal steam account, you can get a Steam global key.
I'm not outraged I'm just a annoyed like you said it's an inconvenience and it's an inconvenience that doesn't need to be there as we can see with a bunch of Playstation games already on the platform which don't require the account.
As long as they dont allow people to skip the process like in helldivers , people won't have an argument to that
@daveofduncan thank you for proving my point
@Kraaatos It's because the minority is always the most vocal.
People have already made an account for Steam or whatever other platform to buy it...
Only real issue is blocking people in some countries because of this. Don't care if it's a small country, people should be able to enjoy a game if they want to buy it.
@CrashBandicoat This is so insulting. I have tried vpn (despite the potential for getting banned). The only way to circumvent this is to have a debit card registered in another country, other wise you cannot change your steam's location and access Sony games.
No one seems to point out the fact that this is a single player game. WHY DO YOU EVEN NEED A SIGN IN FOR A SINGLE PLAYER GAME WHICH IS OFFLINE?
If its a multiplayer game, then yeah it makes sense. But why a single player game?
I can't believe they're spreading misinformation and pretending to support these countries who have not had access to PSN for years, all just because they don't want to make an account.
I find it hilarious how many of you are "na na na na goo"-ing PC players. If any of you Sony cheerleaders weren't able to purchase any of these games you'd lose your ***** lmao.
It's a dumb requirement. It's annoying when other gaming companies also mandate account logins for single player games, and the same is true here with Sony.
@reek Do you understand that you can just buy a Global Key from any site(G2A for example) and it will allow you to register? The games are not region locked in anyway, simply steam doesn’t sell them in those territories directly.
Why don’t Sony add trophies to these titles that then feeds back into main PSN accounts?
@ChrisDeku well, I’m not lying, I’m just stating what I read.
I might be wrong though. 😅
@ChrisDeku good point. Guess they don’t know that.
Don’t think I’ve bought a game on the Steam store itself for over a decade. Always buy keys from cheaper territories instead via key sellers.
Naturally from legitimate agents who buy legit keys in the region, rather than the “eBay of keys” type sites that can be stolen/charged back acquired keys.
@sanderev
I’m sorry. I actually had not realised that.
I guess I sort of take it for granted. I suppose that I assumed it was universal. That everybody has the same sort of experience that I have here (in the UK).
The fact that things like this work differently elsewhere had not occurred to me.
As many have already said... Boohoo PC crowd.
@themightyant - To be fair, it’s a Playstation account that’s required, not a Sony one, so it’s not quite the same thing: A Playstation account is one that is tied specifically to the Playstation console (and should therefore not be required on another video game system) whereas a broader Sony one wouldn’t have such connections (neither do almost all other accounts that publishers try to foist on customers).
@CaptainRPG you wrote a lot yet you have failed to make to point out why it's an issue for me to reconsider, other than "I feel like it's an issue". How do you know single players don't need it? Do you work for PlayStation; do you have inside knowledge of their requirements?
@Callmegil we know because we already have proof. God of war, horizon, returnal, days gone, predator hunting grounds, spiderman, spiderman miles morales, ratchet and clank and helldivers 2 all work on steam without the use of a psn account. Like you said it's an inconvenience but the are not doing anything to justify it. If they prove there is a reason for it I will gladly eat my words but these are games that do not require online access they are offline single player games and forcing people to have a psn account sign in means you need to be online to play them. And with the rise of portable pc units like the steam deck and rog ally offline steam games are starting to see a bit more love. Like it's was a joy to replay ratchet and clank again on my steam deck just taking it with me on my bus commutes was really fun (load times aside) and if it required a psn login I wouldn't have had a chance to play it.
Right now it's an inconvenience in the future is going to be a problem. What happens years from now when Sony eventually shuts down the authentication check on these games they are just going to be bricked. The system relies the game checking the account so what happens when that step is removed. If the game can't check to give you access then it will default to just not give you access because in its mind you did not present that you have a psn account. People are paying for single player games that will eventually be bricked and these are the definitive versions of these games.
@CrashBandicoat I DID BUY THE KEY, IT DIDN'T WORK.
The error came up 'this product is not available at your location'. It is literally not possible to buy these games in any of these countries unless you have a debit card registered over there which changes yur steam storefront.
@ChrisDeku
It doesn't work. I bought global key from cdkeys and had to spend a week trying to get a refund. Steam doesn't accept it 'this product is not avaiable at your location'.
I wonder if Sony forced 180 countries on the playstation not to buy sequel of a game they played earlier. Most people over here would LOSE their *****.
@CaptainRPG This is a lot of conjecture.
You only need internet to link the first time, after it's linked you no longer need internet or login ever again to PSN. Even if you did, you should have a portable device with you that gives 5G connection Internet, no?
"When Sony eventually shuts down the authentication check" — huh? What authentication check? Why would Sony shut that down specifically? For your information, the "authentication" is saved locally on a bin file where the parameters are either True if you linked it, and False if you didn't. Not entirely sure where you got that information from, but I would recommend you to not spread misinformation.
So other than it's "inconvenient to do this once for 2 minutes", what other concerns are there?
@reek no idea then mate. I've added keys before that came from Asian-Pacific, as well as Eastern Europe and it worked fine.
I still don't understand the issue though. Having Sony Playstation exclusive games on PC is an unexpected bonus.
I've been PC gaming since the mid-90's, and never expected Sony, Sega or Nintendo exclusives to be available. If it happened, it was a miracle rather than an expectation.
If PSN isn't available in your region, then basically the complaint is that you are unable to access something now, that you were never able to access in the first place.
I couldn't buy Horizon Zero Dawn for my Xbox Series X, but no one got the violins out for me, and I wouldn't expect them to.
Most of the people on this board who only have a PS5, can't play Breath of the Wild or Mario Odyssey.
Life isn't fair, but then you get to keep your money in the bank, and Sony are the real losers as they get no cash. Plenty of other games out there on PC, many of which are exclusive to PC and PS5 players can't access them.
You pays your money and you takes your choice when picking platforms.
@themightyant I think because its PC news.
@CaptainRPG What are you going to do when steam shuts down?
I'll probably be dead so ya not much
@CrashBandicoat
But I played god of war and now I can't play the sequel thats coming to the same platform.
Ey. Another day of misinformation and overblown reactions from PC race.
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