Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

3 PS Plus free demos you should try this weekend (May 17-19)

By
Peter attacks enemies with the Symbiote Suit in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Sony Interactive Entertainment

One of the most underrated features of PlayStation Plus Premium is the game trials that it offers. Although Sony does not put its AAA games on the service the day they release, it and several other third-party publishers offer up free demos that essentially give players full access to the game for a limited period of time. It’s a great way to test a new game before you buy and it also gives you an excuse to try out a variety of different games this weekend without making the time commitment to beat them all. I looked through the full list of game trials that PlayStation Plus Premium offers and pinpointed three of the demos that are most worth your time.

The first is a two-hour demo for one of the PlayStation 5’s biggest exclusives. The next will give you a two-hour taste of the latest fighting game in a long-running franchise. Finally, the one-hour trial of one of the year’s best indies will get you hooked on the card-based roguelike that consumed my life for a bit.

Recommended Videos

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man soars through the air in a biomechanical suit in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is one of the best AAA games on the PS5. Developed by Insomniac Games, this game feels like the pinnacle of the gameplay and narrative concepts introduced across Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Web-swinging feels better than ever and flows even smoother than before thanks to the addition of mechanics like the Web Wings. Combat still feels great, and the gameplay remains rock solid when control shifts to characters that aren’t Spider-Man. Narratively, Insomniac knocks it out of the park with its interpretation of the Symbiote storyline from the comics, which is nuanced and takes a closer look at how some of Spider-Man’s villains can be redeemed.

Related

This two-hour trial of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gives you plenty of time to play through the bombastic opening fight against Sandman — which is one of the best parts of the entire game — and get a feel for swinging around its open world as both Peter and Miles. If you haven’t picked up this game yet, checking out this game trial is well worth your time as long as Sony doesn’t bring the full game to the PS Plus game catalog.

The full version of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a PS5 exclusive.

Mortal Kombat 1

Havik ripping his own arm off.
WB Games

While Mortal Kombat 1 has a “1” in its title, this game is actually the 12th in a storied fighting game franchise. Mortal Kombat is known for being a fighting game that doesn’t shy away from brutality. The gruesome fatal blows and fatalities that the series is known for are as bloody as ever in Mortal Kombat 1. Gameplay, in general, feels even better as it has been sped up and “Kameo” assist characters have been added. WB Games and NetherRealm are still actively updating this game with new characters, including guest stars like Omni-Man from Invincible and Homelander from The Boys, so it’s an ever-evolving game that PS Plus Premium subscribers can check out for no additional cost.

Within the two hours that Mortal Kombat 1’s game trial encompasses, it’s possible to get through quite a bit of the game’s main story. You can also just hop into online and offline matches right away if that’s all you tend to come to fighting games for. Either way, experiencing the brutality of Mortal Kombat 1 is a fun way to spend the weekend.

You can keep playing Mortal Kombat 1 by picking it up on PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S, or Nintendo Switch.

Balatro

Gameplay from Balatro.
LocalThunk

Balatro is one of 2024’s breakout indie hits for good reason. This roguelike is fairly straightforward. You have a deck of cards and play poker hands in order to earn enough points to beat a score threshold for that encounter. While those number thresholds start low, they increase exponentially, so players will have to take advantage of card upgrades and Joker cards with special abilities in order to increase the points earned a multiplier applied to every hand played. Once you grasp those core elements of Balatro, it’ll be hard to tear its hooks out of you.

This game trial may only be one hour, but that’s more than enough time to learn the basics and get several runs of Balatro in. I recommend turning up the game’s speed in its settings so each run goes by even faster. By the end of that limited playtime, I can assure you that you’ll want more than what this brief demo offers. I’m sorry for ruining any other plans you may have had this weekend by introducing you to this game.

If you want to buy the full game after the trial expires, Balatro is available across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
You need to check out this PS2 hidden gem that’s now on PS Plus
Ghosts attack a man in Ghosthunter.

At long last, Sony has started adding more PlayStation 2 games to its classic catalog on PlayStation Plus. The first batch included Sly Cooper and Tomb Raider: Legend as the big names, and while the prospect of diving back into Sly was incredibly tantalizing, it was a title on the list I had never heard of that roused my curiosity.

Alongside Sly, I hit download on the curious game called Ghosthunter and booted it up to see if it was just padding out the collection or if it was a major blind spot in my PS2 knowledge. The third-person shooter was created by SCE Studio Cambridge, which briefly became a sister studio to Guerrilla Games before shutting down in 2017. As it turns out, it's a piece of PlayStation history worth exploring. While it certainly has its issues, Ghosthunter isn't afraid to be experimental and weird. It feels like a true cult classic that never found its supporters in its day and prime to gain that status all these years later.
I ain't afraid of no ghost
The first thing you'll notice about Ghosthunter is how well it holds up graphically. Coming out in 2004 in North America, this was the tail-end of the PS2's lifecycle and it shows in terms of how well the lighting, character models, and animations of the era have aged. The very first cutscene is about the most early-2000s scene you could imagine, complete with a hooded figure pulling out two sci-fi guns and shooting giant skeleton soldiers in slow-motion backed by thumping club music. It's very much Matrix-inspired and, while corny, put me in the perfect mindset for the experience ahead of me.

Read more
3 PS Plus games to play this 4th of July weekend (July 4-7)
Key art for Assassin's Creed III: Remastered

Happy Fourth of July! It's a holiday weekend, so you're probably going to have a lot of time to relax and party -- or play video games inside while everyone else is blowing up fireworks in the blistering summer heat outside. If you're anything like me, you're probably looking for some new games to play over the course of Independence Day weekend this year, and subscription services like PlayStation Plus Premium thankfully provide tons of options for you to check out. I've even found three somewhat themed around the holiday that you can try.

The first is an Assassin's Creed game set during the American Revolution, which is actually one of very few games to thoroughly explore that period of American history. If you're looking for something more cynical or satirical about America, then there's a remake from Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic that you should play. Finally, if you associate aliens and that classic Will Smith movie Independence Day with this holiday weekend just as much as you do fireworks, then there's a game from Housemarque you must play.
Assassin's Creed 3: Remastered

Read more
PlayStation 6 predictions: games we expect to see on PS6
A screenshot from The Story So Far in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

We're four years into the PlayStation 5's lifecycle, which means that we've likely hit the halfway point. Console generations tend to last around eight years these days, so it's not impossible that we'll get a PlayStation 6 by 2028. While it might seem way too early to start anticipating a far off console (and it is), the reality is that the groundwork for it is likely being laid as we speak. Large scale exclusives can take well over four years to produce, which means that some PS6 games could be in the works right this second.

Some of those games seem like foregone conclusions. We'll likely see new games in the God of War and Horizon series, as well as new IP from studios like Housemarque. As for the rest? We already have some firm ideas about what games will land on Sony's next console. That's partially thanks to studio confirmation, leaks, and some good old fashioned common sense. Here our best guesses as to what we might be playing on a shiny new PlayStation by 2030.
Marvel's Spider-Man 3

Read more