Season Pass DLC - Region Incompatibility

[Narniak]

Bought a physical copy of the "English/Chinese" version of Alienation years ago and it was stuck in my backlog.  Yesterday I finally got around to playing, realized the Season Pass DLC is needed for 100% and level boosting.  I jumped on the Hong Kong PSN store and accidentally bought the wrong Season Pass DLC, because for some reason there are 2 different versions of the game listed.  I mistakenly bought the DLC for the version listed as "English (United States)" instead of "English/Chinese".  No problem I thought, I'm only a few hours into the game.  I'll just rebuy the base game currently on sale for only $5 from the North American PSN store, because that would be cheaper than buying another round of Season Pass at $10.  NOPE!  SORRY!  Not compatible with the Season Pass I just purchased for the "English (United States)" version of the game!  Had to spend another $10 for the Season Pass from the NA PSN store. 

 

Long story short, the Hong Kong PSN store is a confusing mess.  It has 2 versions of Alienation listed, one of which reads like it is the "United States" version of the game, but apparently not the same version of the game you buy from the NA PSN store.  Or maybe DLC purchased from another region is never compatible, despite the fact that the product description is written as such?       

[HelixNebula_x]

13 minutes ago, Narniak said:

 Or maybe DLC purchased from another region is never compatible  

 

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is the long and short of it. DLC has to be purchased from the same region store to be compatible, but I don't have any other regional accounts, so I could be misinformed.

[HuntingFever]

With a tiny number of exceptions, ALL DLC is region locked so has to be obtained from the PS Store in the same country your copy of the game came from. The language of a game has nothing to do with DLC compatibility so don't use that as a gauge when buying any additional content. Virtually every DLC in the HK store is locked to region 3 (even those marked as English) so only games from that region, will work with those DLCs but there are some exceptions e.g. XCOM: Enemy Unknown, AC: Revelations.

[DaivRules]

57 minutes ago, Narniak said:

I mistakenly bought the DLC for the version listed as "English (United States)" instead of "English/Chinese".  No problem I thought, I'm only a few hours into the game.  I'll just rebuy the base game currently on sale for only $5 from the North American PSN store, because that would be cheaper than buying another round of Season Pass at $10.  NOPE!  SORRY!  Not compatible with the Season Pass I just purchased for the "English (United States)" version of the game!  Had to spend another $10 for the Season Pass from the NA PSN store. 

 

Answers above are correct about pretty much all DLC is region locked.

 

It's worth it for you to reach out to Support and try to get a refund on the incompatible software you purchased. Any decent support person will see that you both never accessed it and that it's completely confusing which one actually worked with your region.

 

This isn't a problem for over 90% of PlayStation players because they only generally have one region account so they're only buying games and DLC from the same store and don't have problems. Multiple region accounts and/or buying import discs from other regions can often lead to this confusion though.

[Narniak]

What I don't understand is why there are 2 versions of the game listed in the HK store to begin with.  There's only 1 trophy list, and the only difference in the game I see is the usual swapped "X" and "O" buttons, and some language selection options.  If both versions of the game are locked to the HK region, then the Season Pass I purchased by mistake should still work with the HK physical copy of the game. 

 

The theme and the music soundtrack downloaded no problem, it's just the in-game DLC content that won't show up.  On the main screen in the lower left corner the items are all shaded out.  I can see what's it's supposed to look like with the NA PSN version with NA Season Pass, the items become fully visible and you get a new option to start characters at level 15, armor shade options, the new weapons, etc.  

 

The only other thing I can think of is physical vs digital.  Are there any other instances where digital DLC from the PSN store is only compatible with a digital version of the game and not a physical copy? 

[HuntingFever]

30 minutes ago, Narniak said:

What I don't understand is why there are 2 versions of the game listed in the HK store to begin with.  There's only 1 trophy list, and the only difference in the game I see is the usual swapped "X" and "O" buttons, and some language selection options.  If both versions of the game are locked to the HK region, then the Season Pass I purchased by mistake should still work with the HK physical copy of the game. 

 

The theme and the music soundtrack downloaded no problem, it's just the in-game DLC content that won't show up.  On the main screen in the lower left corner the items are all shaded out.  I can see what's it's supposed to look like with the NA PSN version with NA Season Pass, the items become fully visible and you get a new option to start characters at level 15, armor shade options, the new weapons, etc.  

 

The only other thing I can think of is physical vs digital.  Are there any other instances where digital DLC from the PSN store is only compatible with a digital version of the game and not a physical copy? 

1: Hong Kong used to be a UK colony so has 2 official languages i.e. English and Chinese, therefore most of the content in the store is available in both languages.

 

2: The English and Chinese versions of the game are considered separate entries in the store, therefore you must buy the DLC that's applicable to the version you bought,

 

3: The only time that has happened to my knowledge was with the Shaq Fu reboot.

Edited May 7, 2021 by HuntingFever
Update.

[Narniak]

Thanks for the responses all.  I will try to hit up the Sony HK PSN store for a refund, because apparently you need a degree in the history of Hong Kong to buy some DLC from the store!  Not sure if it's even worth the headache for $10.  Alienation is a fantastic though so I'm not too upset about dropping some extra money on a Housemarque game.