PlayStation Rolls Back Its Least Popular Feature On PC
The change kicks off with Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
It’s only been a few years since PlayStation began its foray into PC gaming. And in those few years, it managed to turn off a lot of PC players by suddenly requiring a PlayStation Network account in order to play a certain selection of its games. While the creation of a PSN account takes mere minutes to set up, some PC players considered the change an unnecessary hurdle for players used to the openness of the platform.
Well nine months after the new policy was first implemented, it seems that PlayStation is second guessing its approach to PC gaming.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, the console maker and publisher announced that select single-player games will no longer require players use a PSN login to play on PC. These titles include Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which releases this week, The Last of Us Part II Remastered out in April, God Of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.
Instead of requiring a PSN account, the publisher will incentivize players to use a PlayStation account to unlock in-game rewards and cosmetics. In Spider-Man 2, for example, players who use a PSN login while playing will get Black suit variants of Spider-Man’s 2099 Suit for both Miles Morales and Peter Parker.
God of War Ragnarok will no longer require a PSN sign-in to play.
Other rewards will include armor sets for Kratos in the 2022 God Of War sequel, an outfit for Aloy in Horizon, and a cool jacket for Ellie inspired by the newly announced Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
“Game creators at PlayStation Studios will continue to work on bringing more benefits to players who sign up for a PlayStation Network account,” the company said.
The decision seemingly marks the end of the months-long controversy that first kicked off last May. Three months after the runaway success of Helldivers 2, Sony infamously announced that the hit game would retroactively require PC players to use a PSN account to continue playing the game. The requirement ignored the fact that the the new proposal would lock out players who already purchased the game and didn’t want to sign up for the service. It also overlooked the fact that the PSN online service isn’t available in over 170 countries, blocking presumably hundreds of thousands of players from the co-op shooter.
Helldivers 2 was the first Sony-published game to try to implement the PSN requirement for PC.
While Sony eventually walked back the proposal after fan outcries, that didn’t stop the company from implementing the rule on some of its other PC releases. Players who pre-ordered Ghost Of Tsushima on PC were given refunds as the game’s multiplayer mode would require a sign in. Both Until Dawn and God Of War Ragnarok required PSN accounts in some capacity as well.
While requiring a registered online account to play games may seem like a simple ask for most, Sony should have known better. The PC gaming audience is notoriously fickle about creators clamping down on how they play their games. Even when porting among the best games of the decade to the platform after years of waiting, Sony was never going to convince these players that a PSN account was truly essential. Its new approach to PSN IDs on PC is both smart and long overdue.
It’s a big week for PC players eager to try Sony’s last big exclusive. Two years after its release, Spider-Man 2 is finally dropping on Steam and Epic Games Store January 30.
