Sony is replaying the Helldivers 2 playbook on PC, and players in 132 countries are the ones paying for it. Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, the 4v4 superhero tag fighter from Arc System Works, is blocked from purchase on Steam in every territory where PlayStation Network accounts cannot be created.
The restriction was baked into the game's SteamDB backend roughly five months ago when the store page first appeared, but resurfaced across social media this weekend as players tried to preorder. The blocked countries match the same 132 originally listed on Helldivers 2's SteamDB page, covering regions including Egypt, Nigeria, Vietnam, Cuba, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Jamaica, and most of Africa outside South Africa.
Players in those territories report being unable to open the store page or complete a purchase. The game is similarly unavailable on the Epic Games Store where PSN is unsupported. The culprit is crossplay.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls requires a linked PSN account to enable PC to PS5 crossplay at launch, and since PSN accounts can't be created in those 132 countries, Steam blocks the sale outright. The reasoning leaves a clear gap: players could simply disable crossplay and play offline. The game includes a story mode, episode mode, local multiplayer, and arcade modes that don't depend on Sony's servers.
On PS5, players in unsupported regions have long sidestepped the restriction by creating accounts registered to another country. That grey-area workaround doesn't exist on Steam. Using a VPN to buy or play the game risks an account ban.
Sony has reversed this exact policy before. Helldivers 2 was pulled from 177 countries in 2024 after the company mandated PSN linking, only to backtrack following massive backlash and review bombing that dropped the game to "Overwhelmingly Negative" on Steam.
Stellar Blade cleared the same hurdle on PC, though developer Shift Up owned that IP and had use to push for a change. Marvel Tokon is a different case.
Sony owns the franchise, leaving Arc System Works with less room to force a reversal. The timing adds to the frustration. Marvel Tokon is expected to be a main-stage game at EVO for the 2027 circuit, yet Morocco, one of the countries hosting EVO next year, is on the blocked list.
As one player put it: "You cannot legally obtain the game in Morocco, one of the countries hosting EVO next year. That sure is a decision that Sony made." The block arrives as Sony faces a wave of negative sentiment over its decision to discontinue physical discs on PlayStation consoles by January 2028, the planned shutdown of the PS3 and Vita stores by 2027, and reports that the company is shifting its PC focus toward live-service titles rather than single-player games.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is available for pre-purchase at $59.99 ahead of its August 6 release on PS5 and PC. An open beta is scheduled for July 24 to 26.
Whether Sony eases the country block before launch is the open question for players in all 132 affected regions.
