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Updated 05/17/24 — See updates below.

I recently wrote about how Sony was squandering the goodwill of players with Helldivers 2 a failure. The game’s publisher has announced that it will require Helldivers 2 PC players to link their PSN accounts to Steam to continue playing the game. The only problem?

Many PC gamers either didn’t want to create a PSN account because they didn’t own a PlayStation, or simply couldn’t because they lived in one of the 177 different countries where it’s simply not possible. Sony eventually dropped the decision after enough bad press—and hundreds of thousands of negative user reviews on Steam—forced them.

But the damage is done, and the goodwill is already lost. One of the best PlayStation 4 games ever made, Ghost of Tsushima, lands on Steam today and already has negative user reviews. From what I’ve reviewed so far, none of the negative reviews have anything to do with the gameplay or performance of the game on Steam.

Instead, all the negative reviews focus on the PSN requirement. In case of Ghost of Tsushima, this was much better advertised. Helldivers 2 dropped the requirement for a few months before Sony made the announcement, which is largely why it was met with such a huge backlash. Ghost of Tsushima makes it clear from the start. It also makes it clear that the requirement is only for the multiplayer co-op part of the game and the PlayStation overlay, meaning you can play the entire single-player campaign – most of the game – without a PSN account linked to your Steam account .

My hunch here is that there never was Helldivers 2 The PSN controversy and all the bad press it generated Ghost of Tsushima The PSN requirement would have gone unnoticed. Sony made this bed for themselves and now any of their Steam releases that have multiplayer components will be hit with a lot of negative reviews that focus solely on that.

It’s a sad time. The game is coming to Steam right around the same time that Ubisoft revealed the first Japanese one Assassin’s Creed game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. This game is already embroiled in controversy regarding one of its main characters, Yasuke, and Sony could have easily capitalized on that by making a big deal out of Ghost of Tsushima Launch Steam. Instead, both games are mired in their own contradictions. And that’s why we can’t have nice things.

Side note: I don’t see any official reviews for the game on gaming websites or YouTube, which makes me wonder if the review codes were even sent out. This is somewhat worrying. I’ll have to try it and see what’s what.

Update 5/17

Ghost of Tsushima Steam reviews have improved significantly since I first posted this right after the game launched. At the time, a much higher percentage of reviews were negative. The game has since received overwhelmingly positive reviews, bringing its score to “Very Positive”, which is, er, very positive!

The game is fantastic, but I think it’s still worth noting that very often the most common negative user review on Steam is focused on the PSN requirement rather than anything to do with the game or PC performance. There are also negative reviews about performance, including crashes, freezing, the game just not working, and so on. Other reviews mention how it’s blocked in non-PSN countries.

Regardless, my point still stands: Even very good games that appeal to the majority of PC gamers will be turned away when you need something like PSN to play them. No one likes how you have to launch the Ubisoft launcher when you buy the game from Steam. Activision were smart when they released Call Of Duty on Steam and didn’t require people to also have Battle.net to run the game (although I don’t like that game’s launcher).

In the end, though, I’m glad about it Ghost of Tsushima gets love from the PC gaming community. This is truly a wonderful game and deserves praise and as many players as possible.

In other news, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the first game in this franchise to explore feudal Japan. It looks really good, although I’m always a bit wary of Ubisoft games these days.