Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls Region-Locked in 132 Countries Over PSN Requirement

For Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, Sony applied a region lock to the game's store pages from the moment pre-orders opened. Players in those 132 countries see a message that reads "This item is currently unavailable in your region" or they cannot view the Steam page at all . According to SteamDB data confirmed by ResetEra user Chairmanchuck, every regional listing for the game carries a "132 countries not available" notice .

Sony has not issued a separate statement about this specific restriction . The company has also not publicly explained why PSN is unavailable in these regions, though observers speculate it relates to payment infrastructure, data-localization laws, or compliance costs .

Close Parallels With the Helldivers 2 Backlash

The Helldivers 2 controversy from May 2024 established the pattern Sony is now following — and the one it later partly reversed.

In May 2024, Sony announced that all Helldivers 2 PC players would need to link their Steam account to a PSN account to continue playing . Because PSN is unavailable in 177 countries, the game was delisted from Steam in those markets . The backlash was immediate and massive: over 200,000 negative reviews poured in on Steam, the game's rating dropped to "Mostly Negative," and Sony reversed the mandate within days, making PSN linking optional .

The situation with Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is structurally identical but strategically different.

The key difference is timing. Helldivers 2 was sold in those 177 countries for months before Sony retroactively demanded PSN linking, which is what triggered the furious review-bombing . With Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, Sony preemptively blocked sales from the start in the 132 countries, likely to avoid selling a game to people who would later be locked out . Many observers note this is the same underlying policy simply applied earlier in the release cycle .

Evidence That Some Restrictions May Be Reversed

Sony has demonstrated a clear pattern of reversing course under pressure, creating a plausible precedent for Marvel Tōkon.

In June 2025 — over a year after the Helldivers 2 controversy — Sony removed regional restrictions and mandatory PSN requirements for four major first-party PC games on Steam: God of War Ragnarök, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and Helldivers 2 . The change made PSN sign-in optional with in-game rewards, and the games became available in 162 additional countries .

Multiple outlets confirmed that Sony "finally got rid of PC game region locks" for those titles after about a year of them being blocked . Engadget and PC Gamer both verified the removal via Wario64's discovery . Sony removed region locks and the mandatory PSN account requirement for most PlayStation PC games on Steam, expanding access to 162 additional countries .

However, not all titles were unlocked. Ghost of Tsushima and some other Sony PC games reportedly remained region-locked even after the June 2025 policy change . Some Reddit users noted that Marvel Tōkon stayed locked even after that rollback, with speculation it would remain so because it requires PSN for online play .

The bottom line on reversibility: Sony has demonstrated a pattern — Helldivers 2 backlash → Sony reversed the PSN mandate within days → broader regional restrictions were lifted in June 2025 for several games . This suggests Sony may eventually relent on Marvel Tōkon if the backlash intensifies, but there is no official indication yet that a reversal is planned.

Broader Concerns About Sony's Digital Ownership and DRM Policies

The PSN account-linking controversy is part of a larger, years-long debate about Sony's approach to PC gaming.

Ecosystem wall-gardening. Sony's push to require PSN accounts on PC is widely seen as an attempt to pull PC players into the PlayStation ecosystem — collecting user data, enabling cross-platform storefront integration, and potentially locking purchases to PSN rather than Steam . Critics argue this treats PC as a secondary storefront rather than an open platform .

Regional access inequality. PSN is not available in dozens of countries — mostly in Africa, parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean — for reasons Sony has never fully explained (likely related to payment infrastructure, data-localization laws, or compliance costs) . By tying PC games to PSN, Sony effectively excludes hundreds of millions of potential customers. The 132-country block affects roughly 2.6 billion people (by comparison with Helldivers 2's 177-country block) .

Digital ownership concerns. The requirement also raises questions about whether a game purchased on Steam can be played independently of Sony's online services. If Sony ever shuts down PSN or changes the terms, players in supported countries could also lose access to games they bought . This mirrors broader DRM debates around always-online requirements and secondary-service dependencies.

Inconsistent policy signaling. Sony's June 2025 rollback for some games signaled responsiveness, but the simultaneous region-lock on Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls shows the company has not abandoned the policy — it is applying it selectively and preemptively . This inconsistency erodes trust and fuels the argument that Sony views PC gaming as a controlled extension of PlayStation rather than a genuine open platform.

What This Means for Players

For players in the 132 affected countries, the immediate situation is straightforward: they cannot legally purchase Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls on Steam or the Epic Games Store without using a VPN or changing their Steam region, both of which carry risks of account bans . Some players note that one of the banned countries has its language listed as "supported" on the store page, adding insult to injury .

Sony has not officially confirmed whether this region lock will be lifted — either at launch or at a later date. Based on the company's past behavior, a reversal is plausible if community backlash intensifies, but it is not guaranteed. Players who want to support the game and express their frustration are leaving negative reviews on Steam and discussing the issue on Reddit and Steam forums, mirroring the tactics that forced Sony to reverse course on Helldivers 2 .

For now, the situation is a stark reminder that when publishers tie PC games to console-centric account systems, players in regions without those services are the ones who lose access — regardless of whether those gamers have a console or ever intended to use one.