Steam Refunds Preorders of Ghost of Tsushima’s Director’s Cut Without PlayStation Network Access

Steam Refunds Preorders of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut in Countries without PlayStation Network Access

Steam, the digital distribution platform, has announced that it will be refunding preorders of the director’s cut of Ghost of Tsushima in countries where the PlayStation Network (PSN) is not accessible. Surprisingly, the refund comes despite the fact that a significant portion of the game remains playable without a PlayStation Network account. The decision follows Valve’s abrupt delisting of the game from its platform.

PSN Account Linking Only Required for Multiplayer Mode

Ghost of Tsushima, developed for multiple platforms, requires a PSN account linking solely for its multiplayer mode, exempting the single-player campaign from this requirement. The game’s developer, through a recent post, has made it clear that services like Steam, Green Man Gaming, and Epic Games Store also acknowledge this exemption. However, in practice, this means that players who are not interested in multiplayer content will still face limitations in gameplay.

You are receiving a refund for a game you pre-purchased – Ghost of Tsushima. The publisher of this game is now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game – and this account cannot be created from your country.

Issues with Mandatory PSN Account Linking in Helldivers 2

Similar to the situation with Ghost of Tsushima, the decision to implement mandatory PSN account linking in Helldivers 2 received severe backlash from players. Sony, the game’s publisher, initially restricted sales to countries where PSN was available. Consequently, the game faced a review-bombing campaign, causing its Steam rating to plummet from “overwhelmingly positive” to “overwhelmingly negative” within days.

Sony eventually decided to backtrack on the PSN account linking requirement, but Steam retained the sale restrictions despite Sony’s decision.

Steam’s Unnotified Sale Restrictions and Valve’s Response

Surprisingly, yesterday, Steam added Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the list of countries with restrictions on Helldivers 2 sales. Arrowhead, the studio behind the game, expressed its lack of awareness regaring the newly added regions and attributed it to an administrative error on Valve’s part.

Johan Pilestedt, the CEO of Arrowhead, is currently in the process of trying to persuade both Sony and Valve to reverse the sale restrictions. While it is plausible that the decision was made by Sony, the lack of response from both the company and Valve on The Verge‘s request for comment makes it difficult to ascertain the actual cause behind this situation.