Select PlayStation Games On PC To Drop PSN Account Requirement

With the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC, PlayStation will not be enforcing a mandatory PSN account sign-in to play select PlayStation Studios games.

The following games will have PSN account sign-in optional:

  • Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
  • God Of War Ragnarok
  • The Last of Us Part II Remastered
  • Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

However, signing-in will now give you in-game rewards. Some of them are just early unlocks, though in the case of The Last Of Us Part II Remastered on PC coming later this April, a PSN login will let protagonist Ellie wear the jacket Jordan wears froom developer Naughty Dog’s newly announced game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

There is an elephant in the room, or rather, the lack of mention of the elephant in the room: Helldivers 2. While PlayStation made mention of the listed games having PSN login as optional, no word on PlayStation’s fastest-selling game dropping the mandatory PSN login, which sparked controversy.

Why PSN login is a big problem and other publisher-based logins not so much

Various publishers have started to push for players to make an account. 2K, Capcom and EA have been doing this for some time and Sega recently started to get players to sign up for a Sega account.

Usually, this mostly means players have to create a new account and have an email associated to it, which is cumbersome, but not a deal-breaker.

The issue with PlayStation Network is that the account isn’t available in all countries. And with the mandatory PSN account required to play these games on PC, it meant that these PlayStation Studios games have to be region-locked and not be offered in countries where PSN is not available. And that list is long, and surprising. Folks in the Philippines can’t buy Helldivers 2.

Other third-party publisher accounts offer more uses, in particular cross-play and cross-save. In the case of Helldivers 2, the sole multiplayer game that requires PSN, it offered cross-play before the mandatory PSN login, and still has no cross-save functionality.

PlayStation is now getting developers to add in-game incentives to reward PC players for logging in to a PSN account, as well as making it an opt-in thing. Which should claw back some goodwill, and shows the console maker is listening to the PC crowd they want to include in their statistics via “active PSN users”.

Source: PlayStation Blog

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept