Report: Sony Removing Country Restrictions to PlayStation Steam Games
[summaraize]
In what could be good news for PC gamers worldwide, Sony appears to be revisiting its country restrictions for games released under the PlayStation banner. Yes, this means that games previously region-locked are now available for purchase, though not every country’s region lock has been removed.
Initially, we saw it happen with the recent release of Stellar Blade; we can confirm it’s now the same case for some other games under the PlayStation Studios banner, too.
However, it doesn’t seem to apply to every game, though we’re unsure if this is a rolling update or if Sony intentionally chose a set of games that won’t be blocked by country restrictions.
Sony Lifting Region-Lock From PlayStation PC Games
With Stellar Blade’s region-lock lifted, Sony has also silently done the same for God of War Ragnarok (thanks, Kami!). We then checked the other PlayStation games have their region lock removed:
- Helldivers 2
- Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered
- The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered
Oddly enough, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 had its region lock removed and then added back again. We’re unsure whether this was a mistake on Sony’s part or intentional. It seems it’s the newer games that got the backend update, though we’re hoping older PlayStation games like Returnal get it. Based on our findings, any title released before Helldivers 2 didn’t get a region -lock update.
What’s odd here is why Sony chose to do this silently. I mean, isn’t this something you’d want everyone to know? Perhaps we’ll get a formal announcement soon. We’ve reached out to Sony for a statement about it, and if we hear anything back, we’ll update the article.
It’s a far cry from last year’s Helldivers 2 fiasco, when Sony initially wanted PC players to sign up for a PlayStation Network account if they wanted to play the multiplayer action game. After a major backlash, Sony backed down, and everyone was happy once again. From requiring a PSN account to now lifting region-locks, that’s a significant turnaround in game ownership policy, and is something we highly approve of.
Let’s hope this is the new normal for PlayStation PC releases moving forward.
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