God of War Ragnarok's PSN bypass mod has been pulled because it "got too much attention" and its creator wanted to avoid "potential threats" from Sony

gamesradar.com:

A God of War Ragnarok PC mod intended to let players bypass the controversial PlayStation Network sign-in requirement has been taken offline by the mod author.

First reported by PC Gamer, iArtoriasUA's NoPSSDK mod was designed to disable the PSN account-linking overlay and mimic a fully offline mode. PC Gamer's own testing was successful, but others reported still having to deal with the PSN linking prompt. Regardless, it's now been taken offline and you'll simply see an error page if you head to the old URL on NexusMods.

When the mod first disappeared, there was a lot of suspicion online about the reason for it being pulled and the party responsible. However, NexusMods itself has since shared a screenshot of a conversation it had with Artorias in which the modder admitted to taking the mod offline. It turns out coverage from sites like PC Gamer and IGN made Artorias worry that Sony might take legal action, even though the mod didn't change any actual content in God of War Ragnarok.

"Hello, that was my personal decision because the mod got too much attention ... thus I thought that it would be better to remove it from public to remove any potential threats from the Sony side," said Artorias. "(Even though the project never modified anything in memory related to Sony products, but better be safe than sorry). I am sorry that it happened, but I cannot really put myself into risk since it was unclear."

Well, that seems to settle that. At least for the time being, if you want to play God of War Ragnarok on PC, you'll have to sign in to a PSN account. That's obviously your choice alone, but I will point you to our glowing, 4.5/5-star God of War Ragnarok review and also remind you that the PC version has a few new features that not even the PS5 version has yet, just in case you need help deciding.

There's a reason God of War Ragnarok made our list of the best PS5 games to play right now.

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