Pre-orders have just gone live for the long-awaited Stellar Blade PC port, which brings Eve (and her ever-growing wardrobe) to Steam and the Epic Games Store more than a year after its debut on PS5. However, players in some countries are finding themselves unable to lock in their pre-order, with Stellar Blade blocked in dozens of countries, seemingly due to the same issue that caused mass review bombing for Helldivers 2 last year – the requirement for a Playstation Network . The really wild part is that the game's developer appears to have been blindsided by this and is surprised to see the game being region-locked.
With Sony already slipping up earlier this week after Stellar Blade is also Steam Deck verified, has for ultra-wide monitors, and comes with an unlocked frame rate for those of you with powerful rigs. That all sounds jolly marvelous.
However, it seems the recurring issue of PSN linking could soon rear its ugly head once again. Fans in some countries are sharing that they are blocked from pre-ordering Stellar Blade on Steam, and while there's no official notice anywhere stating that you must link your Steam and PlayStation s to access the game, the countries all appear to be ones where PSN isn't available. Looking at Stellar Blade through SteamDB, the game is currently showing as unavailable in 129 countries and territories. With the exception of Vietnam, none of these countries feature on Sony's list of Playstation-ed countries.
This is the same issue that saw Helldivers 2 get delisted from Steam in over 170 countries last year, and be on the receiving end of a Sony quickly backtracked from forcing you into linking your PSN , such was the scale of the backlash, and has tiptoed more carefully around this since.
This is why it's quite surprising to see it potentially causing issues once again for Stellar Blade. It's not just gamers that are taken aback – Shift Up seems perplexed about the whole situation too. "The PC version of Stellar Blade does not require a PSN . May I ask where you live?" one response says with a shocked emoji. Other similar responses also contain sad or confused emojis.
Shift Up seems to think that PSN linking won't be required for Stellar Blade's Steam version, so either Sony, as the publisher, has accidentally implemented this when listing the game on Valve's platform, or it's doing so intentionally but with a communication breakdown between them and the developer. I expect that this will be solved or rolled back before the game's PC launch in order to avoid another Helldivers 2-level uproar, but we'll keep you posted.
One other thing to note about Stellar Blade on Steam (and something that is definitely intentional and won't go away) is that it will require you to run Denuvo, the highly controversial and disliked digital rights management software. In response to a disgruntled fan on X, Shift Up assures that there's "no performance degradation due to DRM. Even on lower-end systems, you can enjoy the game in beautiful quality!" For most, this won't be a deal-breaker, but for those vehemently against Denuvo, it could well be.
For more, head to our list of the PC games arriving on Steam and Epic in the near future.
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