Stellar Blade’s upcoming PC release in June will not be available everywhere, and honestly, that’s a bummer. The game is region-locked in 130 countries, meaning many players won’t be able to buy or activate it on Steam. The developers are actively trying to lift this restriction, but it’s a tough battle.
The complete list of blocked countries is available on SteamDB. Interestingly, six countries, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, and Vietnam, don’t even have a price set, while the rest are entirely blocked from purchase or activation. There are also three unknown region codes: AN (Netherlands Antilles), FX (Metropolitan France), and XD (Dubai). Luckily, players in these areas can use accounts from nearby regions like NL for the Netherlands Antilles or FR and UAE for France and Dubai, respectively.
This restriction pattern matches the availability of PlayStation Network (PSN), even though the developers from Shift Up have said that connecting to PSN is optional and never required for Stellar Blade. Still, this isn’t the first time a game gets locked behind PSN rules despite not needing it. Earlier this year, Horizon Forbidden West was region-locked on PSN 10 months after launch, even though it didn’t require an internet connection.
PSN requirements have stirred quite a bit of controversy. It all kicked off when Sony forced Helldivers 2 players to link their Steam accounts with PSN, which led to massive review bombing—over 200,000 negative reviews flooded the game. Since then, Sony has added PSN sign-in requirements to all its PC releases, including God of War: Ragnarok, which also faced review bombing because of this.
Why does Sony keep pushing this? Despite announcing that PSN accounts will be optional for games on Steam in countries where PSN is available, this doesn’t apply everywhere. PC Gamer’s Harvey Randall explained that this likely comes down to preventing price exploitation across regions. If a game is cheaper in one country, key resellers might flood the market with cheaper keys, hurting sales in pricier areas.
Shift Up is not happy with this situation. They tweeted, “We are closely discussing the region lock issue with the publisher and are doing our BEST to resolve most of it as soon as possible.” It’s a tricky fight, especially considering how long it took to remove the PSN requirement from Helldivers 2, but fingers crossed the devs manage to open up access for more players.
What do you think about these region locks and PSN requirements on PC games? Have you been affected or frustrated by them? Drop your thoughts in the comments below—I’m curious to hear your take!
