A scorching potato: Nicely, it did not take lengthy to see how PC avid gamers would react to needing a PlayStation Community account to play God of Battle Ragnarök. It solely launched final Thursday and has already been review-bombed to “Blended” opinions. Unsurprisingly, most detrimental opinions had been rants and gripes about needing a PSN account to play the single-player title.
God of Battle Ragnarök is a wonderful sport; most trustworthy Steam opinions point out as a lot. It was additionally voted “Most Wished Sport” by the Golden Joystick Awards two years earlier than Sony launched it as a PlayStation unique. Publish-launch, it earned probably the most nominations and awards of every other title at DICE 2023, profitable seven of its 12 nominations. Nevertheless, it misplaced the DICE GotY to stiff competitors from Elden Ring.
The primary downside is that some gamers felt burned by the PSN requirement, although this prerequisite was well-known earlier than the PC port launched. Sony clearly famous it in its PC announcement. A number of retailers, together with TechSpot, additionally publicized the requirement. So it wasn’t like Sony blindsided gamers with a post-release restriction prefer it did with Helldivers 2.
It is also not something new. Ghost of Tsushima’s multiplayer mode requires a linked PSN account. Granted, that sport has a multiplayer side, not like Ragnarök. Nevertheless, Sony confirmed that Bloodborne and the Till Daybreak remake may have this stipulation upon launch, and each are single-player video games.
A part of the issue is that a minimum of a number of individuals have conflated PSN with PlayStation Plus. To be clear, PlayStation Plus is Sony’s PlayStation subscription service, just like Microsoft’s Sport Cross. It provides perks and the flexibility to buy video games by the PS Retailer. The PlayStation Community (PSN) is Sony’s free on-line gaming platform.
“PSN requirement is ridiculous,” one reviewer says. “It is a disgrace. I am a giant fan of the God of Battle collection, however I am not on board with this ransom strategy.”
The person complains about signing up and having to enter “PII” (personally identifiable info) and add ID photographs for “age verification.” I do not know the place this person lives, however US accounts don’t require any of that for a PSN account. I confirmed this by making a dummy account.
Right here is the one info Sony asks customers for to create a PSN account:
- Nation/Area
- State or Province
- Most well-liked language
- Date of Start
- Legitimate e-mail
- Password
That stated, there are individuals with a authentic gripe, primarily those that reside in a area with out entry to PSN. I really feel that it is also a ridiculous ask for a single-player sport. Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima multiplayer is considerably comprehensible – a minimum of there’s a legitimate cause to register aside from information assortment.
Luckily, it is a PC construct we’re speaking about, and what’s a PC sport with out mods? Modders had been virtually as fast to publish a easy modification on Nexus that strips the PSN requirement out of the sport. Customers simply copy a few DLLs into the sport listing, launch it, after which click on “No” when it asks to hyperlink PSN and Steam accounts. Downside solved, even for these in out-of-bounds areas.
Look ahead to our benchmark evaluate, which is coming later this week.