Sony offers up six free games per month to PlayStation Plus subscribers

By Will Fulton May 30, 2014

ps plus monthly free games trine2 25

The arms race for gaming subscription services continue with Sony’s announcement that PlayStation Plus subscribers will be granted access to two free Instant Game Collection offerings per month apiece on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita, respectively. Starting in June, two games will go up on the first Tuesday of the month and remain free to download for subscribers until the first Tuesday of the following month, when two new games will take their place. Any downloaded games are the user’s to keep (until/unless their PS Plus subscription ends).

June’s first round of games comprise:

PlayStation 4

Trine 2: Complete Story – A lush puzzle platformer where you need to mix and match the powers of three fantasy tropes (warrior, rogue, wizard) to progress.
PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate – A twin-stick shooter that mixes action, puzzle-solving, and exploration with a healthy dose of advanced fluid mechanics simulation.

PlayStation 3

NBA 2K14 – The same, annually-iterated basketball game you know and love. If you don’t know it at this point, you almost certainly don’t care.
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time – Colorful, anthropomorphic animals, time travel, and a bit of 3D stealth platforming, all in the spirit of PS1 classics like Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot.

PlayStation Vita

Terraria – Dig, explore, craft, build, fight–it’s Minecraft, but as if it it were a side-scrolling RPG for your SNES.
Mutant Mudds Deluxe – Retro, pixellated platformer for the nostalgic crowd with the added twist of letting you jump between the foreground and the background, like some kind of crazy “third” dimension.

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Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

Gaming

You can get NBA 2K23 and more with PS Plus this June

Donovan Mitchell in NBA 2K23.

The three games that make up PlayStation Plus Essential's June lineup have been revealed. There are any major console exclusives or no releases included; instead, there's NBA 2K23, a Jurassic Park tie-in title, and an indie game inspired by classic samurai films.

NBA 2K23 needs little introduction, as it's the latest entry in 2K's long-running, annualized basketball video game series. This latest entry stands out from the ones that came before by deepening the controls an AI further, as well as adding a Jordan Challenge mode that chronicles Michael Jordan's career. Beware of some pretty intrusive microtransactions, though.
Also available this month is Jurassic World Evolution 2, a theme park management game that swaps out roller coasters and other festivities for dinosaur-related attractions. The management genre is a surprisingly great fit for the Jurassic Park IP, and this game even provides a bit of story context to fill in the gap between Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion.
Finally, there's Trek to Yomi, a very cinematic indie game. It's stylized like a classic black-and-white samurai action movie, which makes sense as it's telling a revenge story about a pupil trying to avenge their dying master. If you didn't play this game through Game Pass, it's now available on a Sony subscription service as well.
This certainly isn't the most exciting game lineup, but it still provides a wide variety of gaming experiences. NBA 2K23, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Trek to Yomi will be available through PlayStation Plus from June 6 until July 3. Make sure you download May's PS Plus games before then too.

Gaming

PlayStation Showcase teased Sony’s live service future, but I’m not impressed yet

playstation showcase live service games reveals marathon

Ahead of the May 2023 PlayStation Showcase, I wrote that the presentation needed to “elicit confidence in Sony’s future with live service.” Well, multiplayer-focused live service games did end up being a big part of the show, but I can’t say I’m that confident in them yet.
Between neat looks at single-player exclusives like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Synapse, Sony revealed four live-service games that it's publishing. Those games are Haven Studios’ Fairgame$, Arrowhead Studios’ Helldivers 2, Bungie’s Marathon, and Firewalk Studios’ Concord. The fact that these accounted for almost every major first-party announcements of the show signals that we’re entering a new era for Sony: one where multiplayer rules.
Over the past year or so, PlayStation Studios has made it very clear that it’s trying to break into the games-as-a-service sector now that it’s perfected the single-player adventure with games like Horizon Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok. Unfortunately, these early live service announcements raised more concerns than hope, which isn’t a great start when it comes to establishing a new direction for PlayStation.
A live service showcase
Haven’s sci-fi PvPvE heist game Fairgame$ was the PlayStation Showcase’s opening, and honestly, it wasn’t a memorable first showing. The trailer was purely cinematic, but its shots were composed like they were live gameplay. That still feels misleading 18 years after Sony did it with Killzone 2, even if it clarified it at the start of the trailer. It also means I don’t have a good idea of how this game will be structured and when I’ll have a chance to play it. All I know is that this is an anti-capitalist game that will probably also be a heavily monetized live service experience. It wasn’t a strong show opener; at least, like all of the other titles on this list, it’s also coming to PC.

Fairgame$ was followed up by the long-awaited reveal of Helldivers 2, a sequel to an entertaining 2015 PS Plus sci-fi top-down shooter. To Helldivers 2’s credit, it had the most honest-feeling showing of these games, with a trailer that showed lots of impressive third-person action gameplay and even gave a 2023 release window. Even if its anti-capitalist undertones were a bit similar to Fairgame$, this was the style of reveal I was hoping to see from Sony’s live service announcements. Unfortunately, it was the only live service game reveal to feature any actual gameplay.
After a break from live service announcements, Bungie emerged to reveal that it was reviving Marathon as a sci-fi PvP extraction shooter. While it’s very surprising to see Marathon coming back and that Bungie is making something other than Destiny, it was a purely cinematic trailer that leaned into its techno-futuristic aesthetics -- much like Fairgame$’s reveal trailer. A dev diary released after the reveal also says that we’ll need to wait a while to learn more and see gameplay. But you can buy a $77 shirt based on this game we don’t know much about yet, though.

Gaming

The most exciting PlayStation Showcase trailers you shouldn’t miss

A planet floats in the sky in Marathon.

Sony returned to its long-form PlayStation Showcase format today with an hourlong reveal stream showing off what's next for the PlayStation 5. The stream was filled with plenty of exciting announcements, from a remake of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater to a spectacular Marvel's Spider-Man 2 trailer. Those were just a few of the games shown off during the stream though, which was packed with trailers.

There was a lot to see and no one would blame you if you missed a few things during the hour. From astonishing indie games from celebrated studios to a mysterious new project from Bungie, these are the trailers you need to catch up on if you missed the show.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 | Gameplay Reveal