What does "no long range" mean for the Soulknife rogue's Psychic Blades feature?

Question

One of my players just hit level 3, and is choosing the Soulknife rogue subclass from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

The weapon granted by the Soulknife rogue's Psychic Blades has a weird specification that it has "no long range" (TCoE, p. 63):

[...] Whenever you take the Attack action, you can manifest a psychic blade from your free hand and make the attack with that blade. This magic blade is a simple melee weapon with the finesse and thrown properties. It has a normal range of 60 feet and no long range, and on a hit, it deals psychic damage equal to 1d6 plus the ability modifier you used for the attack roll. [...]

I'm curious how this should be interpreted, seeing as I can't find other examples of such a property.

What does "no long range" mean for the Soulknife rogue's Psychic Blades feature?

There are two possibilities in my mind:

1. The knife simply can't go beyond 60 feet, just like the range of a ranged spell attack.

2. The knife can go arbitrarily far, and after 60 feet the attack is at disadvantage.

I'm leaning toward the first choice, since an arbitrary distance ranged attack seems dumb. (Though I suppose there's an argument to be made that the manifested blade is a "psychic attack" so you can attack someone so long as you can see them.)

The description of the range weapon property in the PHB/basic rules says:

A weapon that can be used to make a ranged attack has a range shown in parentheses after the ammunition or thrown property. The range lists two numbers. The first is the weapon's normal range in feet, and the second indicates the weapon's long range. When attacking a target beyond normal range, you have disadvantage on the attack roll. You can't attack a target beyond the weapon's long range.

Answer 1

The first option

The Soulknife can make attacks out to 60 feet and no further. These attacks are made with a straight d20 roll (absent some other situational factor).

Normal range is the range at which attacks are made with a straight d20 roll. Long range is the range beyond normal range that attacks may still be made but at disadvantage. The Soulknife's ranged psychic blade attacks do not have this latter distance.

In essence, what is happening is the Soulknife's attacks are treated like a spell attack (which do not feature a long range, either the target is within range or it isn't) except that it isn't a spell attack. It is a conventional ranged attack that does psychic damage.

The Soulknife rogue checks to see if a target is within 60 feet. If so, it may roll a d20 to attack. If the target is outside of 60 feet, no attack may be made.

The reason the wording for the feature is a bit verbose is that the attack works in a unique way but which still fits within the conventions for attacks in fifth edition.

Answer 2

The knife simply can't go beyond 60 feet

If a ranged attack, such as one made with a spell, has a single range, you can't attack a target beyond this range.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#RangedAttacks