Sony removes regional restrictions on four of its biggest games on Steam

Sony has removed regional restrictions on at least four of its biggest games on Steam, making them available for purchase in dozens of countries where they were previously out of reach.

The changes were noticed and shared by Wario64 on Bluesky, who said that four games—God of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Spider-Man 2, and Helldivers 2—had their regional restrictions removed. You can see the changes for yourself on the SteamDB pages for each game:

• God of War Ragnarok
• The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered
• Marvel's Spider-Man 2
• Helldivers 2

Sony's made no public comment about the removal of regional restrictions on the games, which is kind of appropriate given its whole approach to releasing games on PC. It was reluctant to do so for years, and when it finally gave in it discovered that putting PlayStation games on PC was basically a license to print money. But that didn't stop Sony from finding rakes to step on: A PSN sign-in requirement for Helldivers 2 was a catastrophically bad call that Sony made immeasurably worse by trying to power through it; it eventually gave in, but not before removing the game from sale in 177 countries where PSN isn't available.

A more across-the-board approach to PSN requirements was rolled out in January of this year, when Sony announced that PlayStation Network accounts would be optional for Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered—both of them unreleased at the time—as well as God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. But the regional restrictions on countries that don't offer PSN remained in place. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Some observers have suggested that the runaway success of Stellar Blade on PC, which launched earlier this week without regional restrictions, may have prompted Sony to reconsider its policies. That seems unlikely to me: There was never any question that Stellar Blade was going to be a hit on PC, with or without regional restrictions, and it's not as if Sony was hurting for examples of successful Steam releases prior to this one.

There's no direct connection, but the change happened on the same day that PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst said during a "fireside chat" presentation that Sony is actually quite careful about how it releases PlayStation games on other platforms, and isn't just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

"We're continuously exploring new ways for players to interact with their franchises. It's important to realize that we're really thoughtful about bringing our franchises off console to reach new audiences, and that we're taking a very measured, very deliberate approach in doing that," Hulst said.

"Particularly on the singleplayer side, our tentpole titles, they're such a point of differentiation for the PlayStation console. They're real showcases of the performance, of the quality of the hardware. So we want to ensure that players get the best experience from these titles. We're very thoughtful about how, and if, we bring these titles to other platforms."

Whatever drove the decision, it only makes sense that if a game doesn't require a PSN account to play, it should be available for purchase in countries irrespective of whether or not PSN access is available there. Hopefully this signals a simpler, more sensible policy for Sony's PC releases going forward.