Sony finally sees sense by making it optional to sign-in to a PSN account for single-player games like Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered on PC, but doing so will net you some bonuses now
After months of complaints from fans, Sony is removing the PSN requirement on some of its single-player PC ports, even if it clearly wants you to do so anyway.
PlayStation has steadily been adding some of its biggest games onto Steam over the past few years, but more recently it’s been forcing players to sign in to a PSN account to even play them in the first place. That proved very controversial with Helldivers 2, so that was walked back, but it stuck with it right through to the recent Horizon Zero Dawn remaster, essentially locking out millions of potential players from buying the game at all as PSN isn’t available in every country (in fact, there’s a whole lot of countries that don’t have PSN). There’s some good news today though: Sony is removing that PSN requirement… for a select few games.
Over on the PlayStation Blog, it was shared that starting with tomorrow’s release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for PC, Sony is “working to add more benefits to playing with an account for PlayStation Network.” This also applies to the upcoming port of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, as well as God of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. Those benefits? In-game unlocks! But the actual important point from the blog is this: “An account for PlayStation Network will become optional for these titles on PC.” Yes, that means a whole lot more people can play those four titles.
The fact that signing in to a PSN account nets you bonuses like an early unlock for the Spider-Man 2099 Black Suit and the Miles Morales 2099 Suit in Spider-Man 2, and, uh, 50 points for bonus features and extras in The Last of Us Part 2, clearly shows that Sony would still rather people connect their accounts.
It’s worth noting that the sign-in requirement isn’t being removed for titles like Until Dawn, another single-player game, so time will only tell if this becomes Sony does for all of its games – I imagine it’ll continue requiring it for online titles, as the online Legends mode in Ghost of Tsushima also still requires a PSN account. Sony didn’t say when the sign-in requirement is being removed for titles other than Spider-Man 2, so just keep your eyes peeled I suppose!