God of War: Ragnarök modder pulled PSN-deleting mod to avoid legal battle with Sony

Earlier this week, a mod for God of War: Ragnarok disabled all PlayStation runtime elements for the game, allowing users to play the game without linking a Steam account to a PSN account. Just a few days later, the mod was deleted. Now, after being contacted by Nexus Mods, the mod creator has explained exactly why they pulled it offline. 

According to Nexus Mods, the mod was deleted by the author, rather than being removed via a DMCA takedown request sent through to the site. Having spoken to the mod creator, iArtoriasUA explained that after the mod received press coverage from major sites like IGN and PC Gamer, they opted to delete the mod to avoid any potential legal threats from Sony.

We've had a chat with the mod author about this and can confirm that the mod was removed due to a personal decision after it received significant traction, including coverage from prominent news outlets, to avoid any future action by Sony. pic.twitter.com/rsMp3YEqnO

— Nexus Mods (@NexusSites) September 25, 2024

While the mod didn't make any changes to game code, it did still remove Sony's PSN features and completely stripped the PlayStation runtime from the game, something that the company was no doubt unhappy with. God of War: Ragnarök is part of the first wave of PlayStation PC ports to require a PSN account to play, something that has been protested heavily online, but it appears that Sony is not willing to budge.

While the mod is no longer directly available, the files were downloaded thousands of times and as a result, reuploads are inevitable.

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KitGuru Says: It seems that on Twitter there is a bit of a conspiracy theory going around, with some claiming that Nexus itself removed the mod at Sony's request. If that were true though, the mod author wouldn't be sharing their explanation on the forums. 

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