Ghost Of Tsushima Director's Cut no longer available on Steam in almost 180 countries due to PSN requirement

rockpapershotgun.com:

Samurai action-adventure Ghost Of Tsushima Director's Cut is due to launch on PC this coming Thursday, May 16th - but it'll be available on Steam in nearly 180 fewer countries than expected. That's because its online features will require players to sign-in to a PSN account, and PSN accounts are not available in those countries. This is effectively the same issue that recently enraged Helldivers 2 players.

The 'purchase restricted countries' were added to Ghost Of Tsushima yesterday, as visible in an update tracked by SteamDB. Some players in those regions have reported that their pre-order was auto-refunded by Steam.

Making matters more complicated, Ghost Of Tsushima is a predominantly singleplayer game, and developers Sucker Punch confirmed earlier this month that a PSN account is "not required to play the singleplayer game". It is required to play "Legends online multiplayer mode and to use PlayStation overlay."

Helldivers 2 launched earlier this year and has been a tremendous success, but technical issues around its launch meant that linking Steam and PSN accounts was not initially mandatory. Sony announced earlier this month that this "grace period" was coming to an end. The game then received over 100,000 negative Steam reviews in 48 hours, with many players pointing out that a PSN account was not available in their region. Not long after, Sony announced they were dropping the requirement entirely.

"We’re still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable," said a Sony statement on the reversal.

Ghost Of Tsushima is another game, meanwhile, and all of this is being communicated prior to its release. There's a note near the top of its Steam store page which makes clear: "PlayStation Network Account required for Online Multiplayer (Legends Mode) and PlayStation overlay, subject to the PlayStation Network Terms of Service and User Agreement". I suspect that Sony will be less willing to back down this time - although it'll be