There was a brief period at the end of last month – for a little less than a week during its 10th anniversary celebration – where Sony had three prominent free titles available through their PS+ subscription service: a Tomb Raider title, the most recent 2K basketball installment, and a Call of Duty remaster. During that sliver of time, PlayStation Plus flexed the muscles of its real gratis potential, offering a sub-optimal but quite satisfying docket of games that would appeal to many different sorts of subscribers.

That period has passed, and an opportunity arises for Sony to continue that momentum with two new titles (while carrying over the Call of Duty game) and fuel enthusiasm leading up to the release of the PS5 in a few months.  Instead, however, Sony has latched onto that surprise title from last month as ½ of their offerings for this month, while including another indie PS4 exclusive … and nothing else. Let’s elaborate on this, but before we do, be sure to head over and Grab a One Year PlayStation Plus Subscription Card at Amazon.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 — Campaign Remastered

Two unavoidable obstacles stand in the way Beenox’s remastered version of Modern Warfare 2.  One is about age, in that the military shooter subgenre has evolved quite a bit since its release over a decade ago, and the game’s mechanics might come across as overly dated and restrictive as a result.  The other can be discerned from the title itself: there’s no multiplayer, yet, which is far and away the most significant reason people tuned into the sequel and made it as popular as it became.

With that understood,this remaster of Modern Warfare 2 must survive on the merits of its single-player storytelling experience alone, easily the most blasted aspect of the otherwise acclaimed release many years back.  Labeled as being short and formulaic, the campaign survives on the speed and outlandishness of the combat action within, and that still strikes a chord among military shooter fans across multiple platforms. Beenox put a lot of effort into both polishing the game up to a modern standard and sticking tight to what Call of Duty aficionados remember of the experience.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Ever since LittleBigPlanet stopped with new releases over a half-decade ago, the folks at Sony haven’t really discovered another exclusive family-friendly franchise to compete with Nintendo’s cornering of the vibrant party-game market. That could change with their release of Fall Guys, released only on PS4 and PC.

Somewhere between Mario Party, Monkey Ball, and the qualifying obstacle challenges in the TV show Survivor lies this straightforward but energetic game, in which 60 players online can compete with one another in a series of mini-game spread across a handful of different categories, from racing and logic to surviving and hunting.  Players customize their rounded, colorful little “fall guys” and use the game’s currency to customize these avatars, which they pilot through sequences of elimination rounds that eventually lead to a victor. Developers Mediatonic have been making vibrant, joyful games like this for a decade-plus now, experience that will hopefully draw in a healthy community for Fall Guys.

PS+ Freebies for August Take a Fall in the Line of Duty