PSN is the biggest hurdle for PlayStation PC games that Sony needs to overcome soon

PSN account requirements in some of the recent PlayStation PC releases have caused a lot of ruckus in the last couple of weeks. While Sony eventually backpedaled on their decision to make PlayStation account log-in mandatory for games like Helldivers 2 and the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima, it still remains an integral part of enjoying aspects of these games.

For both Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, a PSN account is mandatory if you want to make use of the cross-play features. Although the PlayStation account requirement is justified on a PlayStation console or even the ecosystem (PS Remote Play, PlayStation Portal, etc.), it feels forced on a platform like PC.

As such, despite PlayStation bringing its games to PC, and making them available to a larger player base, its forceful integration of PlayStation accounts still feels like it's trying to impose some sort of restriction on players. PSN arguably is now the biggest hurdle for PlayStation PC games, which Sony needs to overcome soon.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinions.

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PSN account requirement is the biggest factor holding PlayStation games back on PC

PlayStation's push for bringing its games, flagship games, might I add, to PC was a great idea, not only from a financial perspective but also from an accessibility front. Modern PlayStation is defined by their games being made more accessible to players, as such, locking them behind a single console ecosystem always felt like an antithesis to that idea of accessibility.

However, now that PlayStation is slowly bringing its flagships over to PC, albeit a few years after the console release, they're trying to shackle PC players into their ecosystem with the "optional" PSN requirement, and I'm using optional in the loosest way possible.

You don't necessarily need a PSN account to play PlayStation's PC titles. However, if you do wish to make use of the cross-play features or even want to play multiplayer modes in some of the games, like the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima, you need to log in using a PlayStation account, which isn't ideal.

Yes, logging into the PSN or creating a new account barely takes more than a minute or two, but that's beyond the point. If it's not that big of a deal, why even include it in the first place? If the game is perfectly functional without a PlayStation login, why force it just so players can make use of certain core features of a game that they paid for?

There's also the fact that many regions don't even have native PlayStation support, and hence they'll either have to resort to making a dummy account using a different region or skip out on playing PlayStation games on PC. Lastly, there's the matter of compatibility on different PC form factors.

Recently, Nixxes Software revealed that Ghost of Tsushima is playable on Steam Deck, but only partially. Since the Steam Deck runs on Linux, players using Valve's handheld system can't access the Legends multiplayer mode of the game. This is because Legends uses PlayStation Overlay and PSN to function, which is currently only supported on Windows systems.

As such, if you're hoping to play the game on Linux or Steam Deck, you'll only be able to access the single-player part of Ghost of Tsushima. To play Legends, which by the way, is quite extensive and is an excellent multiplayer co-op mode, you will need to log into PSN and use a Windows system, simply because of Sony's arbitrary restrictions.