Sony Blocks Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT from Countries That Can't Access PlayStation Network, Steam Responds

Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT is making its way to PC very soon, and in light of its release week and in the wake of the HELLDIVERS 2 controversy surrounding PlayStation Network, Sony has made some changes to the store page.

For the unaware, Sony has been in a running controversy for a while due to their handling of PSN for HELLDIVERS 2: after three months of the game being out, it was going to become mandatory. From this, hundreds of thousands of negative reviews surged, and momentarily, HELLDIVERS 2 was the game with the most negative reviews on Steam until Sony released a post on X, stating that they were backing down from their decision. 

Divers and gamers rejoiced, as the war had been won against this move, yet the victory was short-lived: the restricted countries were never returned, a new set of countries was banned, and in this same wave, Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT received 181 (later 180, as Japan was added by mistake and fixed within the hour) restricted countries. These countries all align with the ones that can't access PlayStation Network, which is likely correlated to the Legends Mode online multiplayer.

What's strange about this particular change, however, is that Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT is predominantly a single-player game, with the multiplayer mode being an extra rather than the main focus (contrariwise to HELLDIVERS 2). This could mean that future Sony games coming to PC could be restricted regardless of their multiplayer compatibility, especially since the Steam store page has a new notice stating the following:

PlayStation Network Account required for Online Multiplayer (Legends Mode) and PlayStation overlay, subject to the PlayStation Network Terms of Service and User Agreement http://www.playstationnetwork.com/terms-of-service

The direct Steam restrictions mean that even the capability to bypass this by creating an account in the nearest area is blocked, making it an impossibility to access the title. All of the countries that are part of the restricted list are now being issued refunds by Steam.