The big picture: Samurai themes are a major trend in media this year. Sony’s Rise of the Ronin garnered positive feedback upon its release in March, FX’s Shogun is among the top-rated TV series of 2024, Assassin’s Creed by Ubisoft explores feudal Japan, and the PC adaptation of Sony and Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima has become highly popular on the platform. Sony’s forward strategy on game ports is proving successful, hinting at a possible soon-to-be PC launch for God of War Ragnarok.
The PC rendition of Ghost of Tsushima swiftly became Sony’s top-selling single-player game on Steam within just four days of its launch, overtaking God of War, and is expected to be outperformed by Helldivers 2 for quite some time.
Set in a picturesque 13th-century feudal Japan, Sucker Punch’s open-world action game, Ghost of Tsushima, has hit a peak of about 77,154 simultaneous players on Steam as of Monday, edging out God of War’s 73,529. Other single-player PlayStation games have also seen success on PC, like Marvel’s Spider-Man (66,436) and Horizon: Zero Dawn (56,557).
Click to enlarge
Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, however, eclipses Sony’s other PC titles with 458,709 players. Its simultaneous release with the PlayStation 5 version played a significant role, unlike other games that were ported to PC three to four years after their PlayStation debuts.
Sony’s subsidiary Nixxes has been commended for its work on the Tsushima port, contributing to its success. It is the first game to officially allow the integration of Nvidia DLSS super resolution with AMD FSR 3 frame generation, enabling smoother gameplay at 120fps on RTX 20 series and 30 series graphics cards. Despite its Steam page indicating no support for the Steam Deck due to multiplayer compatibility, performance reviews have highlighted its exceptional performance on the device.
Ghost of Tsushima’s success remains notable even as it’s not offered for sale in the 177 countries where Sony has suspended Helldivers 2 sales due to a PlayStation Network account linking controversy. It’s available for those with a PSN account to enjoy the multiplayer mode, although purchasing for single-player also requires an account in a region with PSN services.
It’s uncertain how long Sucker Punch’s title will hold its prominence, as indications of a God of War Ragnarok PC port may materialize soon based on recent reports. With the game having sold 11 million copies within three months of its console debut in 2022, making it the fastest-selling PlayStation game before Helldivers 2, its potential PC version is highly anticipated to mimic this achievement on Steam.
