Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut will be available on PC later this week, specifically on 16 May. But it looks like a number of markets would not be getting the game due to the PlayStation Network (PSN) not being officially available. For those in the affected markets that have placed their pre-orders for the game, it looks like they are being refunded.
Sucker Punch Productions, the devs of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, announced earlier in the month that linking your PSN account to your Steam account – or indeed Epic Games account if you prefer – is only required if you intend to play the game’s Legends multiplayer component. Now though, it looks like pre-orders are being refunded regardless, as long as the purchase was made in a region without PSN.
Examples of these refund messages for Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut have appeared online, with examples from Steam and Green Man Gaming, an online retailer that sells games for just about every PC storefront. For both, the PSN account requirement, and the fact that it cannot be created in a customer’s market, were stated as the reason for the automatic refund. Which means that those affected will have no chance of experiencing its singleplayer content, even if they had no intention of trying the multiplayer mode.
The entire situation looks to be the aftershock of the PSN account mandate being enforced for Helldivers 2, the resulting backlash and the walking back of the decision in the end, at least for the Arrowhead Game Studios title. The aftermath saw the game being locked out of markets that did not have an official PSN presence, even after PlayStation rescinded the PSN linking requirement.
For what it’s worth, part of the player backlash saw Steam players of Helldivers 2 review bombing the title and requesting for refunds well after the normal refund window. Many of them in the affected markets were granted before the game got pulled outright from said markets. With the automatic refunding going on for Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, it looks like the Sucker Punch Productions title didn’t even get the chance to make it that far.
To this point, it is still unclear if the decision to not list both Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut in the affected markets is one made by PlayStation or Steam. The Verge reports that Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt is still trying to get the game listed on Steam in markets where it got pulled. It’s also unclear if this will affect future PlayStation-published games moving forward, as the company has announced its plan to speed up the porting of its exclusives to PC.
(Source: @HazzadorGamin, @hakanhacioglu_ via The Verge)
