Stellar Blade's upcoming PC release does not require you to sign into a PSN account, but despite that, it seems to be suffering the same region-locking restrictions that have plagued other recent ports of PlayStation-published games. Nobody's quite sure why Sony is still region-locking these games, and devs at Shift Up seem as confused as anybody.
As SteamDB shows (and as noted by IGN), Stellar Blade is blocked on Steam in well over 100 countries. As one fan says on Twitter, "I've been waiting for you for a year and I prepared $100 two days ago to buy the game and now it's banned in my country because there is no PSN. What is this nonsense?"
"The PC version of Stellar Blade does not require a PSN account," the official account responds. "May I ask where you live?" The studio has continued asking that same question of several other players complaining about the region lock on Twitter.
Planned PSN requirements for Helldivers 2 generated no shortage of controversy, and one of the big concerns was that the PlayStation Network is unavailable in many regions where you'd otherwise be able to buy Steam games. While the account requirement was dropped, the region lock was not, and the list of blocked countries is very similar between Helldivers 2 and Stellar Blade.
Sony has mostly abandoned forced PSN requirements for its PC games, choosing instead to offer bonus unlockables for players who link their accounts, and that's the case for Stellar Blade, too.
Yet all of the publisher's recent PC releases – including the likes of The Last of Us 2 Remastered, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and Lego Horizon Adventures – remain thoroughly region-locked. The reason why is anyone's guess, but it looks like Stellar Blade will be no exception.
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