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Nexus Mods says the creator of God of War Ragnarok PSN Bypass Mod has taken it offline

Nexus Mods says the creator of God of War Ragnarok PSN Bypass Mod has taken it offline

Vaseline 1 week ago

UPDATE: The creator of the God of War Ragnarok PSN bypass mod told IGN that it has become “way too popular” and has taken it offline out of fear of a possible threat from Sony, not because Sony had actually been in contact.

In a statement to IGN, moderator iArtorias said:

“Basically, that was my personal decision to remove the mod because it has become way too popular and people also started promoting it on Steam forums, creating a lot of attention.

“I just wanted to avoid the possible threats on Sony’s part, even though the code has never touched any of their products. You never know and it’s really a gray area for me.”

ORIGINAL STORY: The creator of the high-profile God of War Ragnarok PSN bypass mod has reportedly taken it offline without explanation.

Just days after the PlayStation game God of War Ragnarok launched on PC to a ‘mixed’ Steam user review due to the forced linking of PlayStation Network accountsa mod was released that completely bypassed the requirement.

Sony had made it clear on the God of War Ragnarok Steam page that a PlayStation Network account would be required to play Sony Santa Monica’s purely single-player adventure, but that didn’t stop a number of negative reviews highlighting the policy.

One modder by the name of iArtorias took matters into his own hands by removing the PSN requirement. iArtorias’ NoPSSDK mod, which was downloaded thousands of times from Nexus Mods before being removed, “completely removes the PlayStation PC SDK runtime requirement for God of War Ragnarok.”

But because the mod removed the PSN overlay from the game, mimicking an offline mode, it was used to bypass the requirement for linking PSN/Steam accounts. IGN verified that the mod worked before removing it.

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Earlier this week, iArtorias posted on Nexus Mods and promised to keep their mod even if Sony updated God of War Ragnarok to combat it. “I will try to keep the tool even if something changes, but hopefully nothing crucial happens,” they said.

But today, September 26, the mod is no longer available through Nexus Mods or Github. In a tweet, Nexus Mods highlighted that NoPSSDK had been removed from its site “by the author” and was trying to find out why. It seems like Sony had a vague idea of ​​iArtorias’ mod, but it’s unclear at this point if the company reached out to request its removal, or if iArtorias took it upon themselves to do so. IGN has attempted to contact iArtorias through Nexus Mods and has asked Sony for comment.

Before the mod’s removal, iArtorias had received requests to release a similar mod for Sony’s other recently released PC games, such as Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima requires a PSN account for the Legends online multiplayer mode and to use PlayStation overlay, but is not required to play the single-player game.

Sony’s PSN account requirement for its PC games was thrust into the spotlight with the release of Arrowhead’s explosive PC and PS5 co-op shooter Hell divers 2 earlier this year. Helldivers 2 faced a review bombing campaign on Steam after Sony made PSN accounts mandatory for PC gamers on Valve’s platform (Arrowhead then decided to turn the Steam history graph from user reviews into a cape, which is ready for launch but has yet to be released).

Sony eventually backed down and rolled back Helldivers 2’s PSN account requirementbut the game remains unavailable in the many countries where PSN is missing. And indeed, all of Sony’s games on PC now suffer from this problem, meaning that God of War Ragnarök is unavailable on PC in over 100 countries.

Wesley is the UK news editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].