The Covid pandemic has been tough on a lot of people with no clear end in sight, so Sony has decided to bring back their Play At Home initiative that began last year Over the next four months, Sony will be giving away games and providing entertainment offers like free subscriptions, and things kick off with Ratchet & Clank on PS4 in March. In an interview with GQ, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan also confirmed players can expect to see more day one releases (like Destruction AllStars) appearing as part of the PlayStation Plus Instant Games Collection too.
From 8pm PST on March 1, all players can download Ratchet & Clank for free until 8pm PDT on March 31. Once redeemed, players will be able to keep the game forever with no strings attached. Later on in the month, beginning March 25, new subscribers to the anime-focused Funimation or Wakanim service will not only be able to make use of the free 14-day trial, they’ll get an additional 90 days subscription for free. This offer is also available for a limited time, but Sony didn’t specify when this one will end.
More games and entertainment offers will become available through the months until the end of June, although we won’t get more details on these until later. The promotion will be running for longer than the first Play At Home promotion that began in April last year at the start of the Covid pandemic. Over the course of a single month, players were able to download Journey and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection for free. The idea was to encourage people to stay at home and not venture outside unnecessarily as the world struggled with managing the pandemic.
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan also confirmed players can expect to see more day one releases as part of the PlayStation Plus Instant Games Collection. Adding games like Bugsnax, Destruction AllStars, and the PS5 version of Control Ultimate Edition to PlayStation Plus on the day of their release has turned out to be a “very interesting and innovative way to publish games and to make games available to our subscribers.” It’s the closest PlayStation is likely to get to the Xbox Game Pass model for new releases, something they’ve repeatedly said they’re not intending to emulate. Ryan stated their current system “works for us as the publisher and we know that subscribers to PlayStation Plus love it.”
[Source: PlayStation Blog, GQ]
