Updated 05/17/24 and 05/19/24 – see updates below.
Not so long ago I wrote about how Sony wasted the goodwill of the player from Hell divers 2 rout The game’s publisher has announced that it will be needed Hell divers 2 for PC players to link their PSN accounts to Steam to continue playing the game. The only problem?
Many PC gamers either didn’t want to create a PSN account because they didn’t have a PlayStation, or simply couldn’t because they lived in one of the 177 different countries where it simply wasn’t possible. Sony ended up backing down after enough bad press and hundreds of thousands of negative reviews from Steam users forced their hand.
But the damage is done, and the goodwill is already lost. One of the best PlayStation 4 games ever made, Ghost of Tsushima lands on Steam today and already has negative user reviews. From what I’ve looked at so far, none of the negative reviews have anything to do with the gameplay or performance of the game on Steam.
Instead, all the negative feedback focuses on the PSN requirement. In case Ghost of Tsushima it was much better advertised. Hell divers 2 dropped the claim for months before Sony made the announcement, which is largely why it was met with such a huge backlash. Ghost of Tsushima makes it clear from the start. It also makes it clear that the claim only applies to the multiplayer co-op portion of the game and the PlayStation overlay, meaning you can play the entire single-player campaign — the core of the game — without a PSN account linked to your Steam account.
My guess is that there never was Hell divers 2 The PSN Controversy and All the Bad Press It Generated Ghost of Tsushima The PSN requirement would fly mostly under the radar. Sony has made this a bed for themselves, and now any of their Steam releases that contain multiplayer components will receive a lot of negative reviews that focus solely on that.
Unlucky time. The game was released on Steam at exactly the same time that Ubisoft introduced the first Japanese Assassin’s Creed the game Assassin’s Creed Shadows. This game is already embroiled in controversy over one of its main characters, Yasuke, and Sony could have easily capitalized on that by making a big deal out of Ghost of Tsushima Launch Steam. Instead, both games mired in their own contradictions. And that’s why we can’t have anything beautiful.
Side note: I don’t see any official reviews of the game on gaming websites or YouTube, which makes me wonder if review codes were sent out at all. It’s kind of disturbing. I’ll have to take it for a spin and see what happens.
Update 5/17
Ghost of Tsushima Steam reviews have improved significantly since I first posted this right after the game launched. At the time, a much higher percentage of feedback was negative. Since then, the game has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, raising the game’s rating to “Very Positive”, which is, er, very positive!
The game is fantastic, but I think it’s still worth noting that the most common negative user feedback on Steam focuses on the PSN requirement, not anything related to gameplay or PC performance. There are negative reviews about performance as well, including crashes, hangs, the game just won’t start, and so on. Other reviews mention that it gets blocked in non-PSN countries.
However, my point still stands: even really good games that most PC gamers enjoy will be destroyed if you need something like PSN to play them. Also, no one likes how you have to run the Ubisoft launcher when you buy a game on Steam. Activision was smart when they released it A sense of duty on Steam and didn’t require people to also have Battle.net to launch the game (although I’m less fond of that game’s launcher).
In the end, though, I’m happy about it Ghost of Tsushima is getting love from the PC gaming community. This is a truly wonderful game that deserves praise and as many players as possible.
In other news, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the first game in the franchise to explore feudal Japan. Looks really good, although I’m always wary of Ubisoft games.
Update 5/19/24
This latest update is intended to help players who may be experiencing performance issues with the game (such as freezes, crashes, poor frame rates, etc.)
The best fix I’ve seen for this so far comes from Steam user TheViltsuZ. This requires disabling the PlayStation Overlay, which can only be done if you’re not playing the co-op multiplayer portion of the game.
TheViltsuZ writes:
If you don’t care about the multiplayer side of things or the Playstation overlay, you can delete or rename the PSPC_SDK folder in %programdata%\Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc\ to increase performance by 30-70%.
I have a 1660 Super and before deleting the folder the game was running at around 40fps on high settings. After removing it, the game now runs at around 65fps. This is before the inclusion of FSR3.
We need to raise awareness about this. The port is not good. Or at least the Playstation overlay isn’t very good.
Two things:
- I would say that last claim is unfounded. The port, according to Nixxes experts, is quite good and works very well for most players. There are many reports of crashes and other issues, but this is mostly the norm for PC releases. So many factors affect PC gaming performance, from the age of the hardware to third-party software and more. This is inevitable and one of the biggest headaches for PC developers. On closed platforms like Xbox and PlayStation, this is not a problem. I think it’s safe to say that it’s a great port overall, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have issues with it.
- This is a fairly simple solution for those who are having problems. Just type %programdata%\Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc\ in Windows file explorer and find the PSPC_SDK folder that you can rename or delete. This will disable the PlayStation overlay and give you a significant frame rate boost. You can also opt out of shadows, which can easily give you another 10fps without affecting the visuals too much.
As I mentioned in my first update, the game’s review score is much better than it was right after launch. It’s also a resounding success, with over 72,000 concurrent players on Steam approaching on the 18th God of war became the most popular PlayStation port for PC. Not too shabby!