Ghost of Tsushima will bring PlayStation trophies and friends to PC for the first time, making the walls between console and PC even more meaningless
I'm an old man and I don't understand anything anymore. Time was, you'd get your Xbox games on your Xbox, your PlayStation games on your PlayStation, and on the rare occasion someone thought to port those games to PC they wouldn't work. It was a simple system and it made sense. But look at us now: Ghost of Tsushima is the latest in a long line of PlayStation exclusives to make the leap to PC, and what's more, it's bringing the PlayStation with it.
Sony released Ghost of Tsushima's PC system requirements earlier today, and you'll be able to find an exhaustive breakdown of them from our hardware team shortly. The announcement that sticks out to me, though, is that the game will also mark the debut of a new PlayStation overlay on PC.
If you're anything like me, your games already run under a thick quilt of overlays as-is—Nvidia, Steam, Discord, Windows Game Bar, BonziBuddy—so the announcement of Sony's addition to the pile likely fills you with more than a little fatigue. But wait! This one's actually kind of interesting, because it means your humble desktop is suddenly included in Sony's walled garden.
The PlayStation overlay brings over your profile, trophies and friends list from the PS5, and enables cross-play for Tsushima's multiplayer Legends mode. Using either a pre-existing or new PS account, you'll be able to hassle your console friends and play with them while earning real-life, bonafide PlayStation trophies, much as you've been able to unlock Xbox achievements in certain PC games for a while now.
Oh, and don't fear: Sony says you'll still be able to earn Steam/Epic achievements alongside them, if those things matter to you in the same inexplicable way they matter to me.
Honestly? Great. It's another chip in the once-impenetrable wall that used to separate consoles from PC and each other. PlayStation games (with the exception of you-know-what) come to PC as a matter of course now, and with Xbox boss Phil Spencer releasing Microsoft exclusives on Sony's console and chatting about the possibility of bringing PC storefronts to Xbox, it feels like exclusivity—particularly on PC—is more and more becoming a thing of the past.
Ghost of Tsushima hits PC on May 16. You can find it on Steam and Epic.