God of War Ragnarok‘s PC launch hasn’t been well-received, if player response on Steam is anything to go by. Not only is the game being review-bombed, thanks in no small part to its PSN integration requirement, it debuted to a significantly lower concurrent player count than its predecessor did.
Why God of War Ragnarok’s PC launch is a mess on Steam
According to data tracker SteamDB, God of War Ragnarok peaked at 35,615 concurrent players on Steam, which is a far cry from the 2018 game’s 70,000+ concurrents. One of the main differences between the two titles is that the original didn’t force players to link PSN to Steam, and it doesn’t help that PSN isn’t available in a number of countries.
We’ve also seen widespread reports of Sony’s games installing PSN-related software on PC that’s tanking systems.
That said, Ghost of Tsushima launched with the PSN requirement and that didn’t stop the game from topping charts, so it’s confusing to see Ragnarok being review bombed over it. Bear in mind that games with poor reviews on Steam have lower visibility, so unlike Metacritic, the review bombing in this case may actually have an impact.
It’s unclear how/if Sony will respond, but players have already taken matters into their own hands. As reported on ResetEra, modders have found a way to bypass Sony’s PSN requirement.
