Skip to main content

Mass Effect 2, Magicka 2 free for PlayStation Plus members in November

Sony announced that it will give away free digital copies of BioWare’s sci-fi epic Mass Effect 2 for PlayStation Plus members in November, while PS4 owners can expect to play Magicka 2 and the second season of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead free of charge.

PS Vita owners, meanwhile, can expect to receive the early-era standout Invizimals as part of next month’s PlayStation Plus lineup.

Starting next week, PlayStation 4 owners enrolled in Sony’s PlayStation Plus subscription service can download Paradox Interactive’s Magicka 2 for free. Originally released in May of this year, Magicka 2 features co-op gameplay for up to four players, along with a dynamic spellcasting system. Currently, the PlayStation 4 hosts the only home console version of Magicka 2; the series was previously exclusive to PC platforms.

Also on tap for PlayStation 4 owners this month is The Walking Dead: Season Two from Telltale Games. Continuing the dramatic zombie apocalypse storyline from 2012’s Telltale Games Presents: The Walking Dead, Season Two ups the stakes with a new cast of characters who meet up with a handful of survivors from the first game. The Walking Dead: Season Two‘s story is split across five episodes, all of which will be free for PlayStation Plus subscribers in November.

Over on the PlayStation 3, Sony serves up free copies of BioWare’s Mass Effect 2. Featuring in-depth combat and interstellar exploration segments, Mass Effect 2 ranks as one of the most popular action-RPGs of the last console generation, and promises players dozens of hours of gameplay.

The PS3 edition of Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil also arrives on PlayStation Plus next month, upgrading Michel Ancel’s critically acclaimed 2003 adventure with a higher-resolution presentation and improved character textures, along with unlockable trophies and leaderboards.

Invizimals headlines next month’s free PS Vita lineup, offering a unique experience in which players battle and capture virtual creatures by using the portable console’s camera. Also up for grabs for PS Vita owners next month is the action-RPG Dragon Fin Soup, which will additionally launch as a free download for the PlayStation 4 and PS3.

All featured games will be available for download for PlayStation Plus subscribers starting on November 3rd.

Editors' Recommendations

Danny Cowan
Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…
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.

Read more
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.

Read more
PlayStation lays off 900 people and shuts down London Studio
The PlayStation Studios logo in black and white.

Sony is the latest company in the video game industry to announce massive layoffs in 2024. We've learned that Sony Interactive Entertainment is letting go of about 900 people across several studios; PlayStation's London Studio will shut down as a result.

In a blog post, soon-to-depart Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan says these cuts amount to about 8% of PlayStation's workforce. "Through discussions over the past few months about the evolving economic landscape, changes in the way we develop, distribute, and launch products, and ensuring our organization is future ready in this rapidly changing industry, we have concluded that tough decisions have become inevitable," Ryan explains. "The leadership team and I made the incredibly difficult decision to restructure operations, which regrettably includes a reduction in our workforce impacting very talented individuals who have contributed to our success."

Read more