PS Plus Free Games in 2021 Hot Streak May Have Hit a Dead End With PS5 Games
PS Plus is held as one of the most popular gaming services today, but as with all services, that popularity fluctuates. PS Plus gained a lot of subscribers during the height of the pandemic, lost a lot during recent months, and yet remains higher than it did in 2019. One reason for this (of many) is that the service has provided major games for the last several months.
Now, it’s easy to see why subscribers could be upset with the PS Plus August and September 2021 games. None of their offerings were bad, but these months come after many more months of big releases on PS5. And while this hot streak was great, it was inevitably going to come to an end. It seems PS Plus’ hot streak started running out of steam in August.
PS Plus – Big Games, Bigger PS5 Games
The months leading into the release of the PS5 were big, as Sony used its premiere service to draw attention to its hardware. Then, when the PS5 did drop, PS Plus did not hesitate to release new PS5 titles alongside it.
With the exceptions of Maneater in January (which received PS Plus refunds) and Overcooked: All You Can Eat in August, every PS5 game released on the service has been new. Bugsnax, Worms Rumble, Maquette, Oddworld: Soulstorm, and so on all took that position and gave fans something new. It should be noted that July’s PS Plus game, A Plague Tale: Innocence, isn’t necessarily “new,” but it was new to PS5.
Coupled with various PS Plus discounts and a strong list of PS4 games such as Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it’s clear PS Plus has gone all-in the past few months. However, August and September bring the line-up to lows it hasn’t seen since mid-2020, but this was bound to happen from the moment Sony began churning out big games.
PS Plus Free Games for Fall 2021
With August and September both falling on the lower end of the pool and the general lack of Sony content this fall/holiday, it stands to reason fans should expect weaker games to join the service through the rest of the year. New announcements are not impossible and PS5 ports like A Plague Tale: Innocence are still viable, but it seems to have not only exhausted its resource pool but all the strings it pulled during its hot streak.
That’s not to say that there are games coming to PS5 this fall, with Deathloop set to release here soon and titles like Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Solar Ash, and Jett: The Far Shore coming later on. But they won’t be PS Plus titles. The only one that has potential is Jett, as it releases on the first Tuesday in October, but it can be pre-ordered—which breaks one of the most common patterns for the service's selection of games.
In short, Sony doesn’t have the line-up to keep doing what it was doing, and while each month’s PS5 game could still service to be a new port (or the like), the hot streak of brand new PS5 games seems to have come to an end, at least temporarily.
PS Plus Will Likely Pick Up Again Or Eventually Establish a New Pattern
Ultimately, the jury is still out on whether or not PS Plus can end 2021 as strongly as it started it. It doesn’t seem likely as it stands, although it's worth noting that the PS Plus free game value this year already surpassed last year, and that’s okay. The hot streak ending was inevitable and it may have just reached the end of the line…for now. Sony has quite the stack of releases for 2022, and there’s bound to be more than what fans know.
Thinking forward based on Sony’s past pattern transitions with PS Plus, either Sony will start this up again in 2022 at some point or it will seek a new pattern. Of its releases, the past few months have really helped cement PS Plus as a subscription force, competing even with the likes of Xbox Game Pass, and that’s because it has emphasized variety, strong PS5 titles, and more. It’s hard to see it coming back from that.
On the other hand, it’s likely past time that Sony changes things up. Used to be, Sony would offer one big game and one niche game to subscribers, and that pattern was so-so for the service. Then, the hot streak of big games was released to build hype for the PS5 and then that hot streak expanded with PS5 titles. It could be that Sony settles for a new pattern after sorting out these couple of months, but for now, subscribers will just have to wait and see what the next few months entail.
PS Plus subscribers get a handful of free games every month.
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