It’s been a rocky few months for Helldivers 2, as Arrowhead battles to find the right blend of fairness and fun. For some players, the regular changes to Helldivers 2’s stratagems and arsenal are part of a welcome effort to keep the game even. For others, Arrowhead is micromanaging, and its regular updates and patches are slowly flattening the enjoyment in pursuit of an impossible idea of ‘balance.’ Largely, though, the shift in sentiment towards Helldivers 2 began back in May, when Arrowhead told PC players it would have to link their Steam accounts to the PlayStation Network. While that update never went ahead, now the God of War Ragnarok Steam reviews are in, the Sony Santa Monica game is being criticized over the same issue.
The God of War Ragnarok Steam version arrived on Thursday September 19, and by some measures, it’s been very successful. As of this writing, more than 15,000 people are concurrently playing the latest GoW on Steam, down only slightly from the 24-hour peak of over 22,000. The reviews, also, are far from negative – 66% of all responses from players so far have been positive, earning the action-adventure game a certified ‘mixed’ rating on Valve’s storefront. Given God of War Ragnarok’s acclaim elsewhere however (over on Metacritic, it’s ranked among the 100 greatest games of all time) the response might seem muted.
A lot of the criticism, though, is directed towards one particular issue, that God of War Ragnarok requires players, like was originally the plan with Helldivers 2, to connect their Steam accounts to a PSN account. In some cases, this might not be too fussy – if you already own and use a PlayStation, the process is swift. But for other players, they have to make a PSN account from scratch.
“Creating a PSN account was something I knew was necessary in advance and I was prepared to do so, until I was met with the reality of it,” one Steam reviewer writes. “Ban all third-party logins for Steam,” writes another. “Steam should operate entirely by owning a Steam account and nothing else, especially to even play the game which again, is single player.”
Ghost of Tsushima, another Sony-published game that was re-released on Steam earlier this year, also requires that players link their accounts to PSN. Days Gone, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, and Marvel’s Spider-Man, however, do not.
If you’re a God of War fan, try some of the other best Viking games, or maybe the very best story games on PC.
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