The Horizon Zero Dawn remaster that leaked in September is coming at the end of October, and with that bit of good news out of the way, here's the bad: You're going to need a PlayStation Network account to play it, and if you're hoping to dodge that requirement by opting to ignore the remaster and buy the original PC release, that's not going to happen because it's been removed from sale.
As noted by IGN, the Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered pages on Steam and the Epic Games Store both note that a PlayStation Network account is required to play the game on PC. The Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition pages, meanwhile, remain accessible, but the game itself is not. On Steam, the page now offers only a link to the remaster, while on Epic it's just listed as "unavailable."
This is a problem for a couple reasons. One, it's a headache: I don't have a PlayStation console, I certainly don't have a PlayStation Network account, and I have no interest in setting one up so I can play a game on my PC.
But the far more serious issue for some is that the game simply won't be available in countries that don't have access to PSN. We saw this in May with the Helldivers 2 schmozzle, when Sony introduced a PSN requirement for that game. Adding insult to injury, the best advice in that scenario—set your PSN account to a country other than the one you actually live in—was a violation of Sony's terms of service.
The Helldivers 2 backlash came fast and furious, in the form of more than 221,000 negative reviews on Steam—that's right, two hundred and twenty-one holy cow thousand—that ultimately forced Sony to drop the requirement. But it clearly hasn't given up on the broader idea of forcing PC gamers to connect to the PlayStation Network if they want to play PlayStation games.
It's possible that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will see a similar review bombing campaign when it goes live on October 31, but maybe not, too. Helldivers 2 was a full-scale phenomenon drawing tens of thousands of concurrent players when Sony dropped in the PSN requirement; Horizon Zero Dawn, by comparison, is a good game but a few years old now. (Which might reasonably lead one to wonder why Sony is bothering to remaster it in the first place, but that's a whole different discussion.)
It's also notable that God of War: Ragnarok, which launched for PC on September 19, also has the PSN requirement but nonetheless enjoys a "mostly positive" rating on Steam—not as high as it would be without the PSN thing thanks to an early but unsustained review bombing effort, but not disastrous by any measure.
A rump of negative reviews have popped up on the Steam page for Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, but there's no sign of a wholesale rebellion at this point: Just 39 negative reviews over the past two days, compared to 62 positive reviews—definitely a downturn but not exactly a movement.
The tale will be told when Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered releases: Some will be unhappy, but whether it adds up to the level of discontent we saw with Helldivers 2 is an open question. Personally, I doubt it will. If there's one thing we learned from horse armor, it's that yesterday's outrage is tomorrow's business as usual. As the great Bruce Springsteen put it, "You get used to anything. Sooner or later, it just becomes your life."
(And for now at least, Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition isn't completely gone—you can still pick it up at GOG.)
