Bungie is gearing up for its big Marathon reveal next week. While owned by Sony, Bungie is in a unique position, as it has more independence than other first-party PlayStation studios. As a result, Marathon will be one of the few PlayStation PC titles that does not require a PSN account.
As spotted by Eurogamer, Marathon won't require a PSN account in order to play. Initially, some fans were concerned about the possibility of the game requiring users to make a PSN account, which would lock players from hundreds of countries out of being able to play the game. Bungie addressed the issue head-on in its Marathon Discord Server, stating that “Marathon will not require a PlayStation account for players on PC and Xbox”.
Initially, Sony did not have any PSN requirements for its PC games. However, shortly after the successful launch of Helldivers 2 on PC, Sony changed tactics and implemented PSN account logins for Helldivers 2, and upcoming (at the time) titles like Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarök and Ghost of Tsushima. This led to those games being unpurchasable in hundreds of countries, as PSN is only supported in a handful of regions.
Eventually, the backlash to this led to Sony backtracking on its PSN account requirements. Helldivers 2 no longer requires a PSN login to play and in January, Sony announced plans to remove PSN log-in requirements for its big single-player games too, including the likes of Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.
KitGuru Says: Given that Sony threw in the towel on PSN account enforcement in January, it would seem there was still some concern around Marathon. I'm not sure this concern was warranted at this stage, but at least Bungie was quick to address it.