Is a PSN account ACTUALLY required? ANSWER: Kind of!

[CheeseBoar]

FINAL EDIT, PROBABLY: I kind of found an answer to my own question! You can check it out in the comment I left here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2322010/discussions/0/4843147760499825346/?ctp=9#c4843147950368848211

TL,DR: You do need to log into a PlayStation account, but only a single time. After that, you can log out and stay logged out, and the game will still work.

Here's the original post in its entirety:

I'm looking for a definitive answer on this, because I've heard so many conflicting answers already. I came across this stream:

https://www.youtube.com/live/5BQSPmhQJnY?si=9YH19N5q86mhbje7

...and he clearly isn't logged into a PlayStation account, as you can see on the title screen (where it says "Sign Into PlayStation"), but he's able to play. Other people have said that they get a pop-up saying that a PSN account must be linked to Steam, or the game can't be played.

EDIT: So, it's becoming pretty clear that the PlayStation account requirement is seemingly *completely random.* Some people are forced to log in or get booted to the desktop, and others can just play without ever having had a PlayStation account to begin with. I thought this was a regional thing, but it seems to be differing even for people in the same region.

EDIT 2: I've come to the conclusion that a PlayStation account is absolutely required, there's no way around it. *Linking* the accounts is optional, but the game won't let you even get to the title screen until you've logged into a PlayStation account either via this game or another one.

EDIT 3: Okay, so... I just manually logged out of my PlayStation account using the PlayStation overlay accessed from within the game, and I can still play, even if I exit the game and start it again, online or offline. Even after exiting the game and starting it again, I was able to play without logging in, when yesterday, I was blocked from playing until I logged in again after a restart.

[CheeseBoar]

Originally posted by mileslee10:

I'm playing as we speak and I saw the same thing about the PSN account but I didn't have to log in. I load the game. It has the option in the title screen but I never clicked on it and it works fine I've loaded the game about 3 times so far

Originally posted by zctang305:

yeah, I also found that if you log in PSN before in other games. You dont need to log in gowr. You also can log out in all games that need PSN log in.You can play games as you want

Yeah, I'm almost positive that the PlayStation login is a system-wide thing. The auth file that's created didn't automatically log me into Returnal, though, so I'm wondering if it's separate for the newer PlayStation games, which would only include Ragnarok and Tsushima right now. When Until Dawn comes out, I'll be interested to see if I can just run that one offline from the start.

[Claude_Lib]

Originally posted by CheeseBoar:

After logging into a PlayStation account to test things, I found out that when you log in when prompted by the game, it creates a file in AppData\Local called auth_[YOURSTEAMID].bin. This file determines whether or not you're allowed passed the PlayStation account login prompt so you can actually get to the title screen and play the game. As long as this file is present, you can log out of your PlayStation account via the overlay within the game, *and you won't be forced to log in again,* even if you exit the game and start it up again. Today's 1.1.1 patch note lists a single thing: "Fixed an issue with telemetry events not recording properly." I think this is why logging in seemed so random before, and this update stabilized the process. Everything is consistent now. I even moved my entire Steam installation in Offline Mode and the game to a completely separate machine that had never had Ragnarok installed, and copying that auth file into the new machine's AppData\Local folder completely bypassed the PlayStation login in the game, even on the first boot on that machine. I absolutely was not logged into any PlayStation account, and I never had been in the past on that particular PC.

So the file is C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\auth_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.bin, right? I tried creating an empty dummy file and it changed nothing, so either I got the location wrong or the game actually checks what's inside the file.

[CheeseBoar]

Originally posted by Claude_Lib:

Originally posted by CheeseBoar:

After logging into a PlayStation account to test things, I found out that when you log in when prompted by the game, it creates a file in AppData\Local called auth_[YOURSTEAMID].bin. This file determines whether or not you're allowed passed the PlayStation account login prompt so you can actually get to the title screen and play the game. As long as this file is present, you can log out of your PlayStation account via the overlay within the game, *and you won't be forced to log in again,* even if you exit the game and start it up again. Today's 1.1.1 patch note lists a single thing: "Fixed an issue with telemetry events not recording properly." I think this is why logging in seemed so random before, and this update stabilized the process. Everything is consistent now. I even moved my entire Steam installation in Offline Mode and the game to a completely separate machine that had never had Ragnarok installed, and copying that auth file into the new machine's AppData\Local folder completely bypassed the PlayStation login in the game, even on the first boot on that machine. I absolutely was not logged into any PlayStation account, and I never had been in the past on that particular PC.

So the file is C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\auth_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.bin, right? I tried creating an empty dummy file and it changed nothing, so either I got the location wrong or the game actually checks what's inside the file.

That's the location, yes. The contents of the file can't normally be read just by opening it in a text editor, or something -- it's all encrypted nonsense in plain text -- but yeah, you have the location right, so I bet you're correct in that the game reads what's in the file. It's definitely not hardware specific or server dependent, though, as I found out during my experimentation: I even had no luck getting Ragnarok running *at all* on the Steam Deck, but when I copied that single file over from my desktop, the game immediately started working completely offline on the Deck.

[dosssman]

To add an additional data point, a PSN is a hard requirement for me due to my Steam store region.

I cannot even see the game page if I search for it on Steam.
I had to jump through just to be able to access this discussion thread because Steam won't show it to me. Even when I somehow managed to access the store page for this game, I cannot purchase it.

From this perspective, not only the PSN account is a requirement for playing, but even if I was willing to create one, I cannot.

There was an even worse debacle when it came to Helldivers 2, as people who purchased the game before the PSN requirement was implemented were then unable to play it.

Shame on Sony for that.

[Jan#6077]

It never actualy asked me to login to PSN, I just did it on my own for the trophies lol

[CheeseBoar]

Originally posted by dosssman:

To add an additional data point, a PSN is a hard requirement for me due to my Steam store region.

I cannot even see the game page if I search for it on Steam.
I had to jump through just to be able to access this discussion thread because Steam won't show it to me. Even when I somehow managed to access the store page for this game, I cannot purchase it.

From this perspective, not only the PSN account is a requirement for playing, but even if I was willing to create one, I cannot.

There was an even worse debacle when it came to Helldivers 2, as people who purchased the game before the PSN requirement was implemented were then unable to play it.

Shame on Sony for that.

Yeah, the existence of the PlayStation account requirement at all is really stupid. You can buy a PlayStation console and a copy of this game on disc and you don't even need a PlayStation account there on their own hardware, so I don't know why they thought PC-specific restrictions and DRM was such a great idea.

[baka2k6]

Well, another game I might have bought if the publisher didn't give me some service/DRM ♥♥♥♥ that's completely unnecessary. Just stop buying their games and they will learn at some point. I can understand people not wanting to miss out on good games but it's the only way to teach those corpo idiots.

[Claude_Lib]

Could I ask you to share the file in private? I'm just curious to see if my game will work with another user's file (after I rename it, of course), no malicious intent.

[Double]

Check out this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/godofwarragnarok/mods/22?

The author confirmed that it bypasses the need to log in to a PSN account

[Claude_Lib]

Originally posted by Double:

Check out this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/godofwarragnarok/mods/22?

The author confirmed that it bypasses the need to log in to a PSN account

Well, that was kinda inevitable. Let's see if it works.

[Double]

Originally posted by Claude_Lib:

Originally posted by Double:

Check out this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/godofwarragnarok/mods/22?

The author confirmed that it bypasses the need to log in to a PSN account

Well, that was kinda inevitable. Let's see if it works.

If it doesn't work for some reason the author posted some additional info in the comment section

[Claude_Lib]

Hmm, doesn't seem to work, under Linux at least. Now, instead of "PS PC SDK missing" error, I get "Something went wrong", so it's doing something.

[Double]

Originally posted by Claude_Lib:

Hmm, doesn't seem to work, under Linux at least. Now, instead of "PS PC SDK missing" error, I get "Something went wrong", so it's doing something.

Yeah I'm not sure about Linux. Might only work on Windows

[Claude_Lib]

I wonder if the CCU numbers will grow with this bypass.

[gDance]

Originally posted by CheeseBoar:

FINAL EDIT, PROBABLY: I kind of found an answer to my own question! You can check it out in the comment I left here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2322010/discussions/0/4843147760499825346/?ctp=9#c4843147950368848211

TL,DR: You do need to log into a PlayStation account, but only a single time. After that, you can log out and stay logged out, and the game will still work.

Here's the original post in its entirety:

I'm looking for a definitive answer on this, because I've heard so many conflicting answers already. I came across this stream:

https://www.youtube.com/live/5BQSPmhQJnY?si=9YH19N5q86mhbje7

...and he clearly isn't logged into a PlayStation account, as you can see on the title screen (where it says "Sign Into PlayStation"), but he's able to play. Other people have said that they get a pop-up saying that a PSN account must be linked to Steam, or the game can't be played.

EDIT: So, it's becoming pretty clear that the PlayStation account requirement is seemingly *completely random.* Some people are forced to log in or get booted to the desktop, and others can just play without ever having had a PlayStation account to begin with. I thought this was a regional thing, but it seems to be differing even for people in the same region.

EDIT 2: I've come to the conclusion that a PlayStation account is absolutely required, there's no way around it. *Linking* the accounts is optional, but the game won't let you even get to the title screen until you've logged into a PlayStation account either via this game or another one.

EDIT 3: Okay, so... I just manually logged out of my PlayStation account using the PlayStation overlay accessed from within the game, and I can still play, even if I exit the game and start it again, online or offline. Even after exiting the game and starting it again, I was able to play without logging in, when yesterday, I was blocked from playing until I logged in again after a restart.

Plays best on Ps5. Get a console to enjoy GTA 6 too