Ghost of Tsushima: Legends - which Sony actually refers to as March’s “bonus” PlayStation Plus game - is, of course, the multiplayer component of Sucker Punch’s well-received samurai adventure. Featuring both co-op play and, as of last year, a PvP versus mode, Legends was made available as a £16/$20/€20 standalone release last September, giving purchasers the option to upgrade to Ghost of Tsushima’s Director’s Cut at a discounted price. Ghostrunner, meanwhile - which comes to PlayStation Plus in its PS5-only guise - is a searing, cyberpunk action-parkour adventure from developer One More Level, and a game Eurogamer stamped with a Recommended badge when it launched in October 2020, calling it an “exhilarating display of acrobatic first-person platforming”. It’s also extremely pretty and very difficult, causing me to shout at least one extremely loud swear when I gave it a go last year. Next up, then, Ark: Survival Evolved, developer Studio Wildcard’s dinosaur-imbued multiplayer survival game. As someone who once upon a time put over 1,700 hours into Ark, I’m not sure I’d ever call its blend of building, crafting, dinosaur breeding and taming, and (should you decide to forego the relative calm of PvE servers) brutal PvP action good as such - it’s certainly not a game respectful of players’ time - but it is most certainly compelling. To be honest, I still haven’t got over the afternoon an agitated Titanosaur knocked over my base and sat on my beaver farm so maybe I’m not the best person to ask about this one. And finally for March’s PlayStation Plus offerings, Team Sonic Racing - the follow-up to developer Sumo Digital’s much-loved kart racer Sonic Racing Transformed. While it’s undoubtedly a shame to see Team Sonic Racing ditching the wonderful Sega All-Stars line-up and vehicular transformations of its predecessor in favour of something a little more straightforward, Eurogamer’s Martin Robinson still liked what remained a lot. “For all that’s lost,” he wrote in his Recommended review back in 2019, “a new focus and inventiveness is found…Here’s one of those most cherished of things; an arcade racer with a big idea, the idea here being about team racing - working together as a trio, sharing out pick-ups and ducking in and out of slipstreams, taking turns to lead your small pack or dropping back to scoop a lagging teammate up and bringing them back to the front of the field. It’s a neat idea, served by a multitude of mechanics.” It is, then, a fine selection of games for PlayStation Plus subscribers to sink their teeth into, and all of the above will be available to download from next Tuesday, 1st March. Until then, there’s still time to grab February’s offerings - EA Sports UFC 4, Planet Coaster: Console Edition (PS5 only), and Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-shot Adventure.
