Sucker Punch has made a clarification on the PSN requirement for Ghost of Tsushima’s pending PC release.
Responding to a fan, the Sucker Punch Twitter account shared this message:
“Just so you are aware, A PSN account is required for Legends online multiplayer mode and to use PlayStation overlay. It is not required to play the singleplayer game.”
Sucker Punch’s statement is in connection to the PlayStation overlay that is coming as part of the PC version. While Ghost of Tsushima has a single player narrative campaign, it also features online play on PlayStation consoles.
The PlayStation overlay will add cross-platform online multiplayer for the game with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players, as well as trophies. To enable cross-platform multiplayer, players will need to log in to a PSN account.
Of course, this is also about a completely different issue. That issue is the backlash to Sony announcing they would require PSN login to Helldivers 2 players on Steam. As we had found out, a lot of regions don’t have local PSN, so this choice effectively shut out gamers from many regions around the world from playing the game they bought in the past few months.
After Sucker Punch’s announcement, the PlayStation account itself revealed that they were backtracking on this PSN login requirement for Helldivers 2. But Sucker Punch’s situation is different than that of Arrowhead’s.
We think it’s possible that Sony will still require PSN login for select games they publish on PC moving forward. In the case of online games, there is a security concern, but for offline games, it’s likely that Sony is just looking at data collection.
For a game like Ghost of Tsushima, which launched first on PlayStation, Sony will likely continue to add a PlayStation overlay and require PSN login, to enable cross platform multiplayer. In spite of Helldivers 2’s success, it’s unclear if Sony will fund future second player games that would put them in a position where they have to placate PC players alongside PlayStation players.
Having separate logins and security systems creates a situation where Sony has to invest more on security. As things stand now, Sony may find that Helldivers 2 doesn’t break even, if security issues prop up as a result of their backtracking, and they spend more on dealing with security, than they made in profit, to make the whole thing worthwhile.
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut will be released on PC on May 16, 2024, on Steam and Epic Games Store.
