Sony Surprises PS5 Users With 4 Free PSN Downloads

Sony has surprised PS5 users with four free PSN downloads; however, those interested in redeeming the offer will need a PlayStation Plus subscription. Any tier — Essential, Extra, or Premium — will do, but a subscription is needed. This shouldn’t be a problem, though, because to play the PS5 game in question you need a PS Plus subscription. Meanwhile, there does not appear to be any expiration date on the offer, though, so it could be had in the future whenever you next have an active subscription.

The new freebies specifically involve a 2024 PS5 game released by developer Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony Interactive Entertainment. In other words, the new freebies involve Helldivers 2. The pair aren’t giving away the game itself, but four PSN avatars featuring different poses of a character from the game. The former is specifically calling them “Official Helldiver Identification Portraits,” which have “been approved for civilian morale enhancement.” Unfortunately, for owners and fans of the game on Xbox and PC, this new release is limited to PS5.

One of 2024’s Best Games

Helldivers 2 has sold more than 20 million copies to date, so there is presumably many millions of PS5 users who may be interested in these freebies. Fittingly, the co-op multiplayer third-person shooter has recently seen a resurgence, briefly returning to near the top of the Steam and PlayStation Store charts after being made free with PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium, going on deep sale for everyone else, and getting a substantial update including new crossovers.

In the past, offers like these — PSN avatars — have been perpetual offers, and there is no reason to expect this one will be any different. That said, ones that were made exclusively available via PS Plus have never been released to the wider public down the road, so there is also no reason to expect this. Again, though, considering Helldivers 2 requires PS Plus, any Helldivers fan who would want these would have PS Plus, so this isn’t really an issue. The only people who could end up left out in the cold are fans no longer playing who may no longer have PS Plus as a consequence.

As for the game itself, for those unfamiliar with it, it is a sequel to 2015’s Helldivers. Where the first game was a somewhat niche release on PS3, PS4, and PS Vita, the second is one of the biggest multiplayer games of the generation and one of Sony’s biggest successes of this generation, if not its biggest success. What makes this success more remarkable is the fact that Sony clearly did not see it coming, given how quiet it was with the game in the pre-release period, hardly marketing it like many of its other games.

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