Following an initial announcement last October, Sony has announced that PSN players will finally be able to change their online handles starting sometime Wednesday in the US and Thursday in Europe. But players who do change their online names might face issues ranging from minor to critical when trying to play some legacy PS4 titles.
PlayStation Director of Social Media Sid Shuman writes that all PS4 games published after April 1, 2018 “have been developed to support the online ID change feature.” That said, he adds that not all recent releases have been tested, and some may not “fully support the feature.”
For PS4 games published before April 1, 2018, Sony has already identified a handful that experience serious problems after users change their PSN names. The following games may run into “critical issues” such as loss of in-game currency and game or trophy progress along with improper functioning of user-generated content and other parts of the game (including paid DLC). Sony recommends you not change your PSN name if you plan on playing any of these titles:
Sony has also called out a longer list of games which run into non-critical issues when working with changed PSN handles. These titles may fail to show the updated PSN name online, unlink game and PSN accounts, or reset in-game options to defaults when played after the change:
Sony says that “PS3 and PS Vita games are not supported” under the name-change feature, but it’s unclear if or how those games will still be usable after a name change takes effect. We’ve reached out to Sony for clarification.
PSN users will be able to change their IDs through the PS4 settings menu or a Web form. The first username change is free; further changes will cost $9.99 (or $4.99 for PlayStation Plus members). Users will be able to revert back to any old names for free at any time and will have the option of displaying both the new and old names to friends for 30 days.
