The 2 new free games for PS4 are very popular

For PlayStation 4, Sony has now announced two new free games for September 2019 via PS Plus. They seem to have hit the taste of many players with their selection of PS4 titles. After some lean months, Sony is now receiving a lot of praise for their choices. Does this indicate a change in the quality of the games?

How PS Plus used to be: For years, it was actually tradition for players to complain about Sony on the last Wednesday of the month. This is when Sony announces the free games that PS Plus subscribers can download for free the following month.

For years, these often were games:

that somehow looked like “shareware”
or budget titles that were already available cheaply
or they were in very specific genres
or somehow already “done”

psplus-october-2018 — The selection for October 2018 was particularly harshly criticized.

In October 2018, the free PS4 titles included “Friday the 13th: The Game” and “Laser League”.

The reactions to this were extremely mixed. The trailer for the games on YouTube has 1300 downvotes, with only 669 upvotes:

Friday the 13th was already out of fashion in October 2018, after having a brief hype in the summer of 2017
few could relate to Laser League.

However, in recent months, the mood around PS Plus has changed. Since March 2019, Sony has only been giving away PS4 games for free, and the quality of the free games has improved. This time in September, Sony hit the mark.

This is the new combination: In September, these 2 titles are free for PS4:

Batman: Arkham Knight – a blockbuster title from 2015 that received great reviews
And Darksiders 3 – a game that was released only at the end of 2018. It may not have received great reviews, but it is current.

Much praise for PS Plus in September 2019

This is how players are reacting to the new titles:

On MeinMMO, Millertorian praises: “So top-notch this time… it feels like Sony has been reaching deeper into the AAA bag for the PS Plus games lately. I am definitely a fan of indie games, but I would appreciate it if the big titles were also included for free more often. So I like it, and I hope this continues.”.

Barkx_ also mentions on MeinMMO: “For me, it’s an absolutely brilliant month. Batman has always been on the list.”.

There’s also a lot of praise for the selection on reddit : It said: “Great picks. I’ve been interested in Darksiders 3 for a while and I like playing a bit of Batman again.”.

Another calls Batman: Arkham Knight the “best-looking game on PS4.”.

Is this a permanent turnaround for PS Plus? It certainly seems noticeable that the selection has improved.

Recently, Sony also reacted to criticism. After there were many complaints about two “weak” titles being offered in July 2019, Sony replaced the criticized “Pro Evolution Soccer 2019” with Detroit: Become Human. Apparently without informing the PES publisher beforehand.

However, there have also been weak and strong months in the past. Whether PS Plus will now consistently have “good picks” remains to be seen. For now, it seems that Sony is making many players happy with the selection.

For MMOs, PS Plus also holds a special position. After Conan Exiles was free there, the game experienced a boom.