Mirroring Helldivers 2’s continued regional delisting woes, the upcoming PC port of Sucker Punch’s 2020 historical samurai slice ’em up, Ghost of Tsushima, has been removed from sale on Steam and other PC storefronts in nearly 200 countries and territories that are not served by Sony’s PlayStation Network.
Previous Sony PC ports like God of War or Horizon Zero Dawn were single player only and did not require signing into Sony’s proprietary online service to play. After a delayed rollout due to Helldivers 2’s initial server woes, an attempt by the publisher to institute a mandatory sign in requirement was met with a massive backlash, leading the company to stand down.
One aspect of the situation Sony did not seem to anticipate was that Steam, and thus Helldivers 2 on PC, were available in more countries than PSN, with players in non-PSN supported regions potentially getting locked out of the game they had paid for and been playing. Even after Sony reversed its decision, Helldivers 2 has remained unavailable for purchase in those areas. Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has said that he’s pushing for this to be reversed, but a few new countries were actually added to the restricted list on Steam after his remarks.
Which brings us to Ghost of Tsushima, whose cinematic, story-driven single player campaign is its primary draw. A post-launch co-op multiplayer mode, Legends, seems to be the sticking point with Tsushima’s delisting. While the base game will not require a PSN sign-in, this multiplayer mode will.
SteamDB shows that the same purchase restrictions as Helldivers 2 were added to Tsushima on May 10, and it remains unclear whether this is being driven by Sony, Valve, or both. Each company has an incentive to avoid refunds and disgruntled players. Indeed, some players in affected regions have reported receiving refunds for Tsushima pre-orders without even asking for them.
It’s all a bit of a cluster, and it remains questionable whether capturing more PC users into the PSN ecosystem is worth the lost sales and poor publicity among this desirable audience. Over half of Helldivers sales in the US were on PC, and while the PS5 has handily beaten Microsoft’s Xbox Series offering this generation, Sony has missed its 2023 fiscal year target for PS5 sales. Meanwhile, a VGChartz analysis from January shows the PS5 has lagged behind the PS4 in sales for much of its life cycle.
