Sony"s latest ports of PlayStation exclusives over to PC have been requiring players to make and login to a PlayStation Network account, drawing plenty of wrath from players for the sudden change. The latest game to receive this change is Horizon Zero Dawn, the Guerrilla Games-developed single-player experience from 2017, as a part of its upcoming remastered version. Ahead of its launch, Sony has now pulled the original game from all PC stores.
The store pages of Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition on Steam and the Epic Games Store no longer have a purchase button. What they do have are links to the newly announced Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered version as well as the sequel Horizon Forbidden West. Funnily enough, the sequel does not require a PSN account to play.
The account"s requirement also means well over a hundred countries can no longer purchase Horizon Zero Dawn. This is because months ago, Sony made the decision to pull its games that require a PlayStation Network account from any region that it does not officially offer support for the platform.
Despite being single-player games, Sony"s ports of God of War Ragnarök and the recent Until Dawn remake both have this restriction. Helldivers 2 was another game that introduced the same requirement, but it was later removed due to an immense backlash. The countries without PlayStation Network support still can"t play the game though.
Interestingly, over on the DRM-free store GOG, the original Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is still available for purchase for $49.99. This seems to be because the remaster is not headed for this storefront.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered launches for PlayStation 5 and PC on October 31 for $49.99. Owners of the original from supported countries are able to upgrade to this version for $10.
Updated to reflect correct GOG pricing.