‘God of War’ creator’s ‘Drawn to Death’ is free on PlayStation Plus in April

By Gabe Gurwin March 15, 2017

Drawn to Death - Behind the Notebook | PS4

David Jaffe and The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency’s Drawn to Death looks like a stylish, unique, and irreverent take on multiplayer shooters, but if you were still on the fence about playing it, your decision just got a whole lot easier: The game launches in April, and it’s free for PlayStation Plus members.

“I wanted to find a way to invite all of you PS Plus members into this experience and give you a look at what really excites me about games these days,” Jaffe wrote in a post on the PlayStation Blog. “We’ve been working on Drawn to Death for nearly three years, and over time, it really has become this robust, highly competitive game — and we haven’t even talking about a lot of new features yet.”

These new features “Sphinx missions,” which consist of eight different “battle-focused riddles” that reward additional weapons and levels, as well as “character-centric missions.” There are 15 of these for all six launch characters, and completing them will unlock additional costumes and taunts.

Drawn to Death will also include the ever-popular loot boxes, which contain taunts and skins, as well as a tower-climbing game that will net players in-game stickers. Jaffe is keeping an “insane mystery special offer” secret, as well, but with the release date quickly approaching, we won’t have to wait very long to find out what it its.

Drawn to Death aims to separate itself from other multiplayer shooters not just with its visual style — the game takes place in the pages of a bored student’s notebook — but also with its pacing. The “time to kill” in the game is much longer than in other shooters, giving players more opportunity to develop strategies and experiment instead of just getting shot and killed over and over again.

Drawn to Death launches exclusively on PlayStation 4 on April 4.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Gaming

PlayStation acknowledges Jak and Daxter fans with March’s PS Plus game lineup

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier Key art

Sony today unveiled the March 2024 lineup of new games for the PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra catalog. Jak and Daxter fans, whom PlayStation and Naughty Dog rarely acknowledge, got a win today as the PSP version of Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier is getting rereleased for the first time via PlayStation Plus Premium on March 19.

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier was released for PSP and PS2 in 2009 and is the closest thing we've ever gotten to a Jak 4. Although it's not as well-polished as Naughty Dog's trilogy, it's an important piece of Jak and Daxter history that wasn't easily playable outside of original hardware until this month. Hopefully, this sets the stage for PS Plus Premium rerelease of Daxter will eventually happen, although that isn't confirmed at this time.

Gaming

PS4 vs. PS5: which console should you buy in 2024?

PlayStation 5 controller and PS5.

PlayStation 5 has been available for several years now, and it's easier than ever to find it in stock at retailers. The new-gen hardware makes big upgrades over its predecessor, letting gamers enjoy better graphics, shorter loading times, and support for the fancy DualSense controller. It's also much more expensive than PS4, so while PS5 is better than PS4 in most regards, it might not be ideal for frugal shoppers.

But is PS4 or PS5 the better choice in 2024? Does the aging PS4 really make sense to purchase right now, or should you opt for the PS5? From pricing and available games to storage and resolution, here's a closer look at these two popular consoles.
PS5 vs. PS4 vs. PS4 Pro specs
Even a cursory glance at the specs of the PS5 shows that it’s in a different league than the PS4 (and even the PS4 Pro). Sony has improved the capabilities of its platform in every way, adding more efficient storage, faster compute parts, support for larger capacity disks, and support for higher resolutions. We know there are two versions of the PS5 -- the Standard Edition and Digital Edition -- both of which will offer the same specs (with the exception of the omission of a disc drive with the Digital Edition).

Gaming

You need to try PlayStation VR2’s most psychedelic game yet

Key art for Akka Arrh shows psychedelic images.

You know that it's a busy year for gaming when a project by an industry legend launches with hardly any fanfare. That's exactly what happened in February 2023 with Akka Arrh. Created by Jeff Minter and his eccentric studio Llamasoft, the neon-tinted shooter is a remake of a 1982 Atari game that never saw the light of day after being deemed too difficult. Minter got the greenlight to revive the project, bringing it to life as a retro arcade shooter built in his unmistakable style.

While the project was exciting for game historians, it didn't exactly crack into the mainstream (it only has 37 user reviews on Steam). Thankfully, Akka Arrh getting a second chance to shine this week as its new PlayStation 5 version adds PlayStation VR2 support. While that might not be enough to make it a commercial hit, it does give PSVR2 owners a good reason to dust off their headset and check out a delightfully oddball project from one of gaming's true visionaries.
It's a trip
Akka Arrh is the rare example of a game that might be easier to explain on paper than in practice. In this throwback arcade shooter, players control a stationary ship that's tasked with protecting pods from attacking aliens. To fend off foes, players drop bombs that blow up in a different geometric pattern on each level's map. Every time an enemy touches that blast radius, it blows up in the same pattern, chaining to other enemies. The goal is to keep an uninterrupted chain going as long as possible by using a limited number of bullets to knock out foes that can't be destroyed by bombs and grabbing power-ups by hovering the cursor over them.