How is July almost over already!? What kind of fast-forwarding, time-warping nonsense is this!? Existential crisis aside, the end of a month is a time of celebration because it means another batch of “free” PS Plus Essential games is inbound. As announced by Sony, here are the three games you can claim as of August 5.
The headline act for August is undoubtedly the highly successful souls-like Lies of P. I was, quite literally, away to buy this game just last week, so this is perfect timing.
Lies of P (PS4, PS5) from Round8 Studio is often lauded as the best souls-like game not made by FromSoftware. It has sold over 3 million copies, and its inclusion this month is likely because of the recently released Overture DLC. No doubt Round8 will be hoping that a new batch of players who get the game at no extra cost might result in a few more DLC sales.
“This macabre Soulslike draws its inspiration from an unlikely source: The Adventures of Pinocchio. In this grim reimagining of Carlo Collodi’s treasured tale, Pinocchio is trying to find the mysterious Mr. Geppetto. His journey takes him to Krat, a Belle Époque-inspired city whose humanity has been lost to madness and killer puppets. Pinocchio must battle for survival using a range of weapons and swappable Legion Arms with special abilities. He will also encounter non-hostile characters, but you will have to help him lie to fulfil his dream of becoming human.”
Next up, it’s DayZ (PS4), the survival game that continues to hold a strong player base. DayZ launched on PS4 back in 2019 in a dreadful state. It has been heavily updated over the years and based on my research it does perform massively better than it once did. That said, you can still find a lot of threads and comments complaining about the console’s performance. Considering you don’t have to pay extra to pick up the game, though, it’s gotta be worth at least trying, right?
“DayZ is a hardcore survival game where up to 60 players must strive to endure a post-apocalyptic world populated by frenzied infected and other survivors. DayZ includes the original iconic map of Chernarus and Livonia – the dense 163 km2 map which lets players experience the hardcore survival hit in a whole new environment. With no checkpoints or saves, when you die, you lose everything and have to start over. “
Finally, we have My Hero One’s Justice 2 (PS4), which was released back in 2020. I honestly know next to nothing about this game except that it’s an arena-style brawler with a middling critic score on Opencritic.
Even the PlayStation blog doesn’t seem to bothered about this one, giving it just two paragraphs of blurb:”My Hero One’s Justice 2, the over-the-top follow-up to the smash hit 3D arena fighter My Hero One’s Justice, makes its heroic debut! Make full use of characters’ Quirks as you clash head-to-head in epic battles across huge arenas!”
As always, remember to go ahead and add these games to your library once they are available, and that way you’ll be able to download and play them whenever you want, so long as you have an active subscription.