As noticed by ResetEra user Chairmanchuck, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is appearing on SteamDB, and it looks like the game won’t be available in 132 regions across the world (on PC). This is the same nonsense that has plagued prior PlayStation games that made their way to PC, including Helldivers 2 (before that PSN requirement was removed), Until Dawn, God of War Ragnarök, Ghost of Tsushima, and Stellar Blade.
Sony hasn’t confirmed anything officially, of course. We’re left piecing this together from a database instead of a statement, which at this point feels like the company’s actual communication strategy.
Here’s the real issue, though. PlayStation Network is only officially available in a fraction of the countries where Steam and Epic operate freely, and Sony still hasn’t done anything to fix that. Not a roadmap, not a timeline, not even an acknowledgment that it’s a problem. Every time a PC release requires that PSN link, it slams shut in the same 100-plus countries, over and over, because the actual root cause never gets addressed.
And no, a VPN isn’t going to save you here. Sure, you could use one to get around this, or so you think, but there’s a problem with that. Using one violates Steam’s terms of service and can get your account banned outright. But even if you were willing to risk that, it wouldn’t matter, because if you’re in an unsupported country, the game won’t even show up as available to purchase in the first place. So as a PC gamer stuck in one of these regions, you’re screwed either way. No workaround, no loophole, nothing.
Granted, we did see Sony quietly lift restrictions across 177 countries last summer for titles like God of War Ragnarök and The Last of Us Part II. So clearly, something can be done on the access side. But loosening restrictions after backlash isn’t the same as expanding PSN itself. Until Sony says whether it even plans to bring PSN to more regions, this is just going to keep happening with every new release.
This is just frustrating for fans of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, as well as the future of online-only games that might make their way over to PC. If PlayStation refuses to address this, it’s going to get to the point where it stops releasing games on PC at all.
I wonder if Disney knows about this.
