PlayStation exclusives stopped being games you can’t play anywhere else a long time ago. They’re games you can’t play anywhere else right away. Sony also releases its own titles on PC and describes this as intentional, but there is no rule for the gap between the console and PC release: for one game it was almost four years, for another just under two, and for one remaster both versions came out on the same day.
What exclusivity actually means today
The clearest official statement on this came from Hermen Hulst, then head of PlayStation Studios, on the PlayStation Blog in June 2021: “PlayStation will remain the best place to play our PlayStation Studios titles at launch.” So the best place to play the games at launch. Not the only place, and not forever.
In the same interview Hulst also explained the reason: PC releases are meant to reach players who haven’t experienced PlayStation Studios stories yet, and in his words they will never come at the expense of building a strong console lineup. As an example of the gap, he cited Days Gone, which came out on PC roughly two years after its PS4 release.
It’s worth noting that you won’t find a newer overall statement from Sony on its porting strategy. The latest official one is that June 2021 statement; everything else is speculation around quotes from interviews and investor materials. What you can compare are specific release dates.
How long it takes games to come to PC
| Game | PlayStation release | PC release | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost of Tsushima (on PC as Director’s Cut) | 17 July 2020 (PS4) | 16 May 2024 | roughly 3 years and 10 months |
| Horizon Forbidden West (on PC as Complete Edition) | 18 February 2022 (PS5 and PS4) | 21 March 2024 | roughly 2 years and 1 month |
| God of War Ragnarök | 9 November 2022 (PS5 and PS4) | 19 September 2024 | roughly 1 year and 10 months |
| Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered | 31 October 2024 (PS5) | 31 October 2024 | none, released simultaneously |
The dates come from the PlayStation Blog and PS Store, verified as of 14 August 2026. Two more games are worth mentioning outside the table: Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, which arrived on PC on 7 August 2020, and God of War from 2018. Sony announced its PC version in October 2021, and the development partner was Jetpack Interactive, the studio that later also made the PC version of Ragnarök.
Why you can’t just say “I’ll wait two years”
Because the numbers in the table don’t give you any usable average. The spread goes from zero for the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster to almost four years for Ghost of Tsushima, with everything else in between. Hulst’s example of Days Gone and two years described one case in 2021, not a rule for the future.
The second thing the data tells you: PC often doesn’t get the original game but a later version of it. Ghost of Tsushima arrived as the Director’s Cut, Horizon Forbidden West as the Complete Edition. So PC players get more content, and they pay for it by waiting and by having to manage how much they find out about the game in the meantime.
When PlayStation makes sense for the exclusives and when it doesn’t
- It makes sense if you want to play while people are talking about the game. Avoiding spoilers for several years is a full-time job, and with story-driven games that matters a lot for the experience.
- It makes sense if you play in a smaller language such as Czech. Sony’s official localization list for the Czech Republic includes God of War Ragnarök, Horizon Forbidden West and Days Gone Remastered, all with Czech subtitles. How to check the languages of a specific game is covered in our guide to language support in PS5 games.
- It doesn’t make sense if you already have a powerful PC and can wait. Some of the lineup will come to you sooner or later, and on PC you also aren’t tied to a single store. If you don’t have a PC, Steam games can also be streamed from the cloud, which we describe in our article on GeForce NOW.
- It doesn’t make sense for a single game. A console plus a subscription plus the game costs several times the price of the game itself. Before you buy, it’s worth going through everything on PS5 that’s worth playing and doing the math across more titles.
Watch out for one common assumption: the fact that Sony has released several of its games on PC isn’t a promise that every one of them will come to PC. The same applies outside PlayStation, and a good example is Oceanhorn 3 on Apple Arcade, where the missing Android version has led to a wave of fake installers. What’s documented are specific titles and specific dates, nothing more. If you’re torn between platforms, we compare them in the article PS5 or Xbox Series X, and if you’re unsure about when to buy, there’s an article on whether to wait for PS6.
How to get the exclusives for less
Buying at full price isn’t the only option. The Extra and Premium tiers include a catalog of hundreds of games, but according to Sony’s terms its lineup can change at any time and differs by subscription tier and region. What each tier includes is covered in our article on PS Plus tiers. Free games in PS Plus work differently: you add a game to your library once, and it stays there as long as your subscription is active.
The previous generation is cheaper too. Ghost of Tsushima and God of War Ragnarök both originally came out on PS4, and what’s still worth playing on it today is summed up in our overview of the best PS4 games.
FAQ
Some will, and Sony does it deliberately. Documented examples include Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarök. That doesn’t mean every PlayStation Studios game will come to PC, though. Sony has made no such commitment.
There’s no single rule. For Ghost of Tsushima it was roughly three years and ten months, for God of War Ragnarök roughly one year and ten months, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered came out on PS5 and PC on the same day, 31 October 2024.
The latest overall official statement is from June 2021, by Hermen Hulst on the PlayStation Blog. He said that PlayStation will remain the best place to play PlayStation Studios titles at launch and that PC versions won’t come at the expense of the console lineup. You can’t find a newer official position.
Some do, in the form of subtitles. Sony’s official list of localized games for the Czech Republic includes God of War Ragnarök, Astro Bot, Horizon Forbidden West and Days Gone Remastered, among others, with Czech subtitles. None of them has Czech dubbing; on that list, dubbing is mostly limited to Czech-made games.
It depends on how well you handle waiting and spoilers. PC often gets an expanded version of the game, so you get more content. But the gap can’t be planned, and for a specific game a PC version may never come at all. Documented cases range from the same release day to almost four years, so there’s no reliable waiting period.
The list of games that have made their way from PlayStation to PC grows every year, so treat the dates in the table as a documented snapshot, not a complete list. More articles about Sony’s consoles are in the PlayStation section on Gamers Together. Information verified as of 14 August 2026.
Featured image: BeatEmUps, CC BY 3.0.