God of War Ragnarok received “mixed” user reviews on Steam upon its PC release, with most complaints centering around the controversial requirement for a Sony PlayStation Network account.
Sony made it clear on God of War Ragnarök’s Steam page that a PlayStation Network account would be required to play the Sony Santa Monica single-player adventure, but that apparently didn’t prevent a number of negative reviews criticizing the policy.
One negative review on Steam, from a user who returned the game after only 20 minutes of play, pointed out the PSN requirement. “Creating a PSN account was something I knew in advance was necessary and was prepared to do until I was faced with the reality,” they said. “For UK residents at least, it requires a mobile number to verify your age to get started, and if that fails (and it did, no text messages were ever received), your only recourse is to upload a face photo or government-issued ID to a third-party website. If you’re happy with that, go ahead.”
“Yes, I do not intend to link my account to PSN, especially for a single-player game,” reads another negative review from a Steam user, which also lists Sony’s data breaches.
Sony’s requirement for a PSN account for PC games came into the spotlight with the release of Arrowhead’s explosive PC and PS5 co-op shooter Helldivers 2 earlier this year. Helldivers 2 was met with a review bomb on Steam after Sony made PSN accounts mandatory for PC players on Valve’s platform (Arrowhead then decided to turn its user review history graph into a cape that’s ready for launch, but hasn’t been released yet).
Sony has finally backed down and removed the requirement for a PSN account in Helldivers 2but the game remains unavailable in many countries where PSN is not available. And indeed, all of Sony’s PC games now suffer from this problem, meaning God of War Ragnarok is unavailable on PC in over 100 countries.
It seems unlikely that Sony will change its mind again on God of War Ragnarök, which means the game could live with a “mixed” Steam user rating for a while. As for God of War Ragnarök’s popularity on PC, official Steam stats show that 25,471 people have played it at the time of this article’s publication. That’s significantly lower than God of War’s PC launch, which peaked at 73,529 players on Valve’s platform.
God of War Ragnarök continues the story of Kratos and his teenaged Atreus. The sequel was praised as a fascinating spectacle upon release, receiving a 10 in IGN’s review.
“Immaculate writing, excellent performances, blistering action—it’s a complete work of art from top to bottom. Reflecting its core themes, it’s everything a sequel should be: respectful of its legendary pedigree but unafraid to take it to exciting new places,” we wrote at the time. “God of War Ragnarok is a towering achievement, and it creates a new high that makes many of its peers seem downright mortal by comparison.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
