It turns out that region-locking your games makes it harder to sell more copies. First discovered byWario64, Sony has lifted regional restrictions for several of its titles that are available to play on PC through Steam. Sony hasn't officially announced the removal of these region locks, nor the reason why, butGod of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us Part II Remastered,Spider-Man 2, and the hit co-op shooterHelldivers 2can be purchased once again in 177 countries that were previously prohibited, as seen in database changelogs.
To understand why Sony decided to limit sales of its games in certain countries, we have to revisit when the video game publisher announced it would requireHelldivers 2PC players to link their Steam accounts to the PlayStation Network. This controversial decision prohibited players in countries that didn't have access to the PSN, so Sony also removedHelldivers 2from being on sale in those locations. The publisherquickly backtrackedon that move, even laterremoving the PSN requirementsfor other titles likeSpider-Man 2.
More recently, the PC release ofStellar Bladeon June 11 resurfaced Sony's PSN login requirement debacle. The game's developer, Shift Up, was able to work with Sony to loosen restrictions and make a PSN login optional, allowing for an explosive launch where the game saw a peak of nearly 200,000 players in its opening week. Now, PC gamers across the world can playStellar BladeandHelldivers 2without needing a PSN account. However, there are still some Sony titles on Steam that are heavily restricted, likeGhost of TsushimaandUntil Dawn.