Sony has begun testing free game trials on PlayStation 5, allowing users to play a few hours of games before purchasing them – but it’s not a perfect service just yet.
As spotted by Eurogamer, the trial feature appears to be available only in the United Kingdom right now, and currently includes just two games – Death Stranding: Director’s Cut and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. For those wondering how long you can play each game, that seems to be dependant upon what you choose. Death Stranding: Director’s Cut gives players up to six hours of free gameplay while Sackboy: A Big Adventure offers five.
However, the actual amount of time that players will end up spending in the game is likely to be considerably lower than that. In a decision that’s likely to affect players differently depending on their internet download speeds, the trial period for each game has been set to trigger from the moment that you select “Download Trial” on your console, or “Add To Library” from the web – as opposed to when you actually start playing the game for the first time.
The game trial interface on the browser version of the UK PS Store.
This means that if the game takes you two hours to download, then you’ll already have used up a significant portion of your trial period without actually experiencing any gameplay. At 68GB (and 48GB before its playable), Death Stranding’s file size could mean that some users end up using most of their trial period just getting the game onto their consoles. You’d hope that, should Sony make game trials available worldwide, it would adjust that system.
To access either trial, UK players just need to navigate to each of the game’s respective store pages. It’s worth noting, however, that the feature is only available for PlayStation 5 users and that attempting to access a trial for PS4 will not be possible. Sony also notes that the feature is limited to one trial per account, per game.
Despite the fact that Sony’s ‘try before you buy’ system isn’t without its issues, many will hope that it is indicative of a more general trend moving forward, and that further games and regions will see be added to its list soon.
If you’re looking for more on Sackboy: A Big Adventure, then make sure to check out our review of the game. Alternatively, if you’d like to delve further into the recent release of Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, then take a look at this article where we talk about the differences in performance that the PS5 version of the game has brought.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.