During the State of Play conference, Sony announced that popular prestige-action sequel God of War Ragnarök would finally be coming to PC in September. The PC version will have unlocked framerates, upscaling, super ultra widescreen support, and will include the Valhalla DLC as well as the New Game+ mode added post-launch, as Sony's blog post explained.
And then, in a footnote at the bottom, it added "Account for PlayStation Network is required." The Steam page and Epic page corroborate this, saying: "PlayStation Network Account required, subject to the PlayStation Terms of Services and User Agreement." They then link to the PlayStation Network terms of service.
This presumably means God of War Ragnarök will be unavailable in the 177 countries and territories where PSN can't be accessed, as we learned when Helldivers 2 was delisted en masse following Sony's requirement of a PSN login (a demand that Sony subsequently backed down from).
- Sony finally surrenders: PSN accounts will be 'optional' for games on Steam including Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us Part 2, but they'll give you free stuff if you sign up
- Sony gets people scratching their heads after region-locking purchases of Horizon Forbidden West, 10 entire months after its initial release
Since then, we've seen Ghost of Tsushima end up in a similar pickle. The PC version was likewise delisted in those 177 countries and territories because its co-op multiplayer mode requires a PSN sign-in to access. Oddly, Ghost of Tsushima doesn't demand a login if you're just playing the singleplayer mode, and yet God of War Ragnarök—an entirely singleplayer game—for some reason will.
It'll be out on September 19. At least, for some of us.
