Steam is auto-refunding players who bought Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut in countries where PSN isn’t available.
Last week – around the same time Helldivers 2 was being pulled from sale in 177 countries following the disastrous rollout of mandatory PSN linking – Ghost of Tsushima developer Sucker Punch confirmed that Steam players were not required to sign up to PSN if they only wanted to play the Director’s Cut’s singleplayer campaign on Steam.
Now, however, it seems digital storefronts like Steam and Green Man Gaming have either decided – or been instructed to – automatically refund pre-orders from people who live in territories where players cannot legally sign up for PSN.
Whilst there’s been no official word from Sony, Steam, or Sucker Punch itself about the automatic refunds, the game’s subreddit and numerous social media channels are being hit with complaints from players who pre-ordered the game only to find that their order was cancelled.
As developer Sucker Punch is “part of the PlayStation Studios family”, it seems a decision has been made to pre-emptively refund all pre-orders to players who can’t legally sign up for PSN after fans review-bombed Helldivers 2 so badly, Sony eventually reversed the decision.
The message Steam pre-orderers are receiving says: “You are receiving a refund for a game you pre-purchased – Ghost of Tsushima. The publisher of this game is now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game – and this account cannot be created from your country.”
Initially, it was thought that only Green Man Gaming was taking the unprecedented step of auto-refunding Ghost of Tsushima pre-orders, but many players are reporting that the same is now happening on Steam and Epic Games Store, too.
We’ve reached out to Sucker Punch and Sony for clarification and will update just as soon as we hear back.
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut will finally release on PC on 16th May, 2024. The team at Nixxes Software recently laid out the crossplay and system requirements for Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on PC. It has also detailed a new optional PlayStation UI overlay for PC.
