Codemasters’ racer GRID Legends, RageSquid’s extreme downhill biking game Descenders, and Torn Banner Studios’ multiplayer medieval action title Chivalry 2 are the PlayStation Plus games for the month of May. All games will be added on May 2 and will remain available for subscribers of the service until June 6. That means subscribers have until May 1 to redeem April’s offerings, which are Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Tails of Iron, and Meet Your Maker.

Sony will, of course, also be adding a longer list of titles to the PlayStation Game Catalog for subscribers on the PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium tiers, so expect to get details on what that lineup will be in the coming days.

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Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and Inkulinati go live on January 31st, though the latter is launching via Game Preview. Those looking for more action can check out JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R for consoles, cloud and PC on the same day.

February 2nd marks the arrival of Darkest Dungeon, the punishing rogue-like turn-based RPG, which will be playable on consoles, cloud and PC. Codemasters’ GRID Legends is out on the same day via the cloud on EA Play, while Hot Wheels Unleashed – Game of the Year Edition arrives on February 7th for consoles, cloud and PC.

In addition, these four titles will be leaving the service on January 31st. Play them now while you can:

• Donut County (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master (Console and PC)
• Telling Lies (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Worms WMD (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (on PC)

When the remastered duo launched for PS5 in January, it debuted in fifth place on Gfk’s UK physical sales charts. Pretty good, even if it didn’t hit the top 20 for The NPD Group’s best-selling games for the month. Its PC version is a completely different story, though, hitting a peak concurrent player count of only 10,851 on Steam when it was released in October. Either because there wasn’t much hype around it, or other big titles took all the attention, the collection just didn’t resonate.

CrossfireX

With a whopping 38 out of 100 Metascore and lacklustre marketing, it was somewhat expected that CrossfireX wouldn’t do great. Lo and behold, it didn’t chart anywhere in The NPD Group’s February 2022 sales rankings, nor did it warrant a mention in Gfk’s physical charts for the UK. However, given how popular Crossfire’s multiplayer is in China and South Korea (with over $1 billion in revenue each year since 2014), this won’t hurt Smilegate’s bottom line one bit.

Monark

You could call Monark another victim of Elden Ring’s overwhelming presence, especially in Europe, where it launched on the same day as the Souls-like. That’s probably why it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in Gfk’s physical sales charts for the week. It also had only 177 peak concurrent players on Steam in the West. Then again, when released last year in Japan, it barely hit 16,000 units sold on PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Couple that with poor critical reception, and its failure is understandable.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire Tokyo was one of the premiere PS5 console exclusives this year and sadly didn’t perform up to par. It debuted in 12th place for The NPD Group’s March 2022 charts, and in 11thth place for Gfk’s UK physical game charts. Not only that, but it sold 80 percent less than The Evil Within 2 in the UK, which was considered to have performed poorly at launch. Though it managed sixth place in its debut in Japan, it only sold 10,144 units in its first week. Even the Steam numbers were nothing to write home about, with a peak concurrent total of 14,086 players in its lifetime.

Shadow Warrior 3

Shadow Warrior 3 was intriguing in how it not only went with a super-linear approach to its levels but also stuck to previous-gen consoles and PC. Blame it on the lack of marketing buzz, the shadows of Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West, or something else, but when released on March 1st, 2022, it was nowhere to be seen in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts or GSD’s digital sales charts. Even the peak concurrent player count on Steam was a mere 1,651 players.

GRID Legends

Another game which likely suffered due to releasing too close to Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West is Codemasters’ GRID Legends. It debuted in 18th place in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts and was pretty much never heard from again after that. Yes, not even in The NPD Group’s best-selling titles for February and March 2022. SteamDB reveals a peak concurrent player count of just 455, which is just a few days after it launched.

Roller Champions

Roller Champions’ success is a bit harder to measure since, well, it’s a free-to-play title. That being said, its digital revenue hasn’t warranted any mention this year. It launched to very little reaction on PC, Xbox One, and PS4, and the Switch release did nothing to help this either. Lest anyone thinks the recent Steam release would aid in a resurgence, it has had a peak concurrent player total of 141. Such was the response that reports quickly circulated of the game being sunset, which Ubisoft denied.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

One of the big three releases of December, Marvel’s Midnight Suns has a lot going for it with the XCOM team involved, strong critical acclaim, and some well-known Marvel heroes. It even had 15,500 peak concurrent players on Steam. Sales-wise, the story is less positive, as it debuted in a mortifying 26th place in the UK physical sales charts. Granted, Firaxis is known more for its PC player base (as seen with the Steam user count), and the digital sales could help, but the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 numbers can’t be entirely discounted. Maybe it was just the victim of too many big releases on the same day, as evidenced by The Callisto Protocol performing way better.

Need for Speed Unbound

Due to its release timing, we won’t know how Need for Speed Unbound performed in the US until next month. As for the UK, its launch week physical sales were down a staggering 64 percent compared to Need for Speed Heat, earning it only 17th place. This may seem expected, but it’s the tenth-biggest IP in the region’s history. Things hardly improved the next week when it slipped to 19th place following a 19 percent sales drop. Steam player numbers aren’t so great either, with a peak concurrent total of only 14,063.

Star Ocean: The Divine Force

Compared to Valkyrie Elysium, Star Ocean: The Divine Force performed decently when it launched in Japan, with over 44,000 units sold on PS4 and PS5. The problem? It’s the weakest game launch in the series. The first Star Ocean in June 1996 sold over 81,000 copies on the Super Famicom, for crying out loud. The Divine Force failed to crack Gfk’s top 10 in the UK and debuted in 14th place for the US, according to The NPD Group, before quietly fading away.

Gungrave G.O.R.E.

Gungrave G.O.R.E. launched a few weeks after Sonic Frontiers and God of War Ragnarok, and days after Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Shock of shocks, it neither charted in the UK nor the US. On Steam, it has a peak concurrent player total of 138, which says it all.

Harvestella

This one hurts, simply because I loved Livewire’s Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights. Sadly, Harvestella matched up in neither sales nor critical acclaim. It debuted in second place in Famitsu’s Japan sales charts with 26,644 units sold on Nintendo Switch, but only reached 38,704 sales before dropping out entirely. On PC, it had a measly 3,395 peak concurrent players via Steam.

The DioField Chronicle

Square Enix may have some heavy hitters coming in 2023, but this year has been rather disastrous for the publisher. It released a flurry of underwhelming titles and commercial flops, like The DioField Chronicle. The strategy RPG launched at 17th place in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts and sold about 12,068 units in its first week in Japan across Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5. SteamDB notes 1,272 peak concurrent players over its lifetime, which is pretty sad.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PC)

Considering how valuable the PC market has been for Sony with Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War (2018), and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, it was expected that Sackboy would follow up on that success. Alas, it wasn’t to be. It recorded a meagre 610 peak concurrent players since launch, far less than even Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. Sony hasn’t revealed sales numbers, and maybe it’s unfair to expect much out of a lesser-known IP on PC. Nevertheless, it’s still disappointing.

New Tales from the Borderlands

Released on October 21st, 2022, you’d expect a new Borderlands title, much less the follow-up to Tales from the Borderlands, to get a decent response. But either due to the lack of marketing, Telltale not returning, the premise or a flurry of other releases, New Tales from the Borderlands came and went with very little response. It wasn’t mentioned by Gfk in its UK physical charts for the end of October and throughout November. Even worse, it didn’t even chart in The NPD Group’s US sales charts for October and November.

Horizon Forbidden West

In many ways, Horizon Forbidden West is more of what made Horizon Zero Dawn so good, just enriched further. The increased fidelity fits well with the wider variety of environments, like San Francisco’s coast and the dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge. But even when traversing the deserts and forests, everything looks so crisp and detailed, from sand particle effects to the foliage and skyboxes. Of course, the animation work also deserves a nod for how much it’s expanded and enhanced, particularly in cutscenes and interactions. It helps bring every encounter to life.

The DLC unlocks four new cars that players can use in Career events, namely the Aston Martin Vantage GT4, the Porsche 962C, the Ginetta G55 GT4, and the Koenigsegg Jesko.

Additionally, the content pack also features six new Career events focused specifically on the Ravenwest Motorsport, along with new team icons, liveries for cars, and banners to differentiate and represent either Ravensport or Seneca on the race track. 

The Seneca and Ravenwest Double Pack is available to purchase now across all platforms.

GRID Legends is available on PC (via Steam and Origin), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

The new update 1.07 adds the option to finally enable the game’s music outside of the Driven to Glory mode in other game events. Seeing as this has been a requested feature since pretty much the game’s launch, the player base should be satisfied at the change. Additionally, general bug fixes and performance improvements on consoles have also been addressed through the update.

The patch notes for the update contain exhaustive details on the various fixes and changes the new patch brings to the game, so be sure to check them out in full below. 

GRID Legends is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

GRID LEGENDS UPDATE 1.07 PATCH NOTES

General

• An issue that would cause aggressive engine braking has been fixed
• The DMG Colossus, Dumont T37 Wolf, and Panoz GTR-1 now unlock correctly
• A ‘Select Vehicle’ prompt has been added to the pre-race player lobby
• Using Flashback no longer causes players to win a race one lap early
• Mileage for cars owned is now tracked correctly
• Sponsor objectives are now shown as ‘complete’ when conditions have been met
• ‘Out of world’ is no longer visible in Sepang International Circuit
• The AI no longer remains in control of player cars in some Multi-Class situations
• ‘Clean and Respray’ is now working correctly
• Sun reflections have been refined on certain vehicles during different times of the day
• Sponsor objectives are now relevant depending on the choice of MPH or KPH
• Unintentional AI crashes on Indianapolis have been resolved
• An issue causing the Advanced Options menu to lose functionality has been fixed
• The EA Play subscription promotion is now displayed in all relevant places
• Russian flags have been removed from the Moscow circuit and banner selector
• Other minor bug fixes have been made

Online

• Various fixes to issues relating to joining and leaving sessions, spectating, and switching between Online and Driven to Glory modes have been made
• A ‘Profile Error’ notification no longer appears when blocking a player
• Expired events no longer show when reconnecting to the game
• An issue with vehicle selection after the host uses ‘Start Race’ has been fixed
• Issues with AI when using ‘Quick Race’ have been resolved
• Issues with vehicle upgrades not working correctly have been fixed
• An issue where the camera would be stuck on the track overview during Time Attack has been fixed
• Other minor bug fixes have been made

Driven to Glory & Career

• Unto the Breach – Yume’s dialogue is now triggers at the correct time
• All Driven to Glory events now unlock correctly
• Issues with AI on the first TC-1 event have been fixed
• The objective in the second Muscle event now shows as complete when criteria is met
• The Renault R26 event now unlocks correctly
• Team information is now correct on pre-race screens for Career
• Camera issues in the pre-race screen for the first Track Day Specials event have been fixed
• After winning a multi-round event, objectives now unlock if terminal damage is suffered 

Art

• There have been numerous fixes to level of detail (LOD) pop-ins and shadows
• Trees no longer twitch on Okutama Sprint/Circuit
• Shadows have been refined on the Porsche 911 GT3 RD, Koenigsegg Jesko, Shelby Cobra 289 FIA, Beltra Open Wheel, Renault R26, Cadillac DPi-V.R and Panoz GTR-1
• There have been adjustments to some visual effects and fireworks
• Damage particles no longer settle in the air on Strada Alpina

Performance/System

• There have been adjustments to the saturation/transparency of the Terminal vignette
• An issue that resulted in frame drops when AI spawns after the player has been fixed
• Performance issues within the livery editor and post-race flow have been fixed
• Resolution changes now revert to previous setting if pressing ALT+TAB during countdown
• Various reasons that would cause the game to Crash have been resolved across all platforms

Xbox

• Performance improvements have been made that would result in frame drops, including when starting the game from ‘Quick Resume’
• Functionality when using the Logitech G920 & G923 with a shifter has been restored

PlayStation

• Texture downscaling in cockpit view has now been resolved
• The save profile now correctly shows as ‘GRID Legends’ instead of ‘GRID’

Origin/EA Desktop

• Origin – The in-game overlay is now visible
• Origin – A license check failed error message when switching accounts no longer displays
• EA Desktop – The option to purchase the full game has been added after completing the first six Driven to Glory races during the trial

Achievements

• “THIS IS IT”, “Sure, Jan”, and “For the Time Extend Crew” achievements now unlock correctly
• “San Francisco Rushing” progress now tracks correctly during Electric events

Text

• An incorrect message that was shown when searching for an underage account has been fixed
• An ‘Elimination Survived’ message now displays when Spectating
• Subtitles are no longer inconsistent with audio
• Other minor text fixes have been made throughout the game
• Minor translation fixes have been made throughout the game

Audio

• The option to enable music during events outside of Driven to Glory has been added
• There have been several other audio fixes made throughout the game

Of the total sales, 63 percent were on PS5, followed by 17 percent on both Xbox and PS4. PC sales accounted for just three percent but Steam numbers have been very strong. Horizon Forbidden West dropped to second place with sales down by 79 percent week-on-week. Pokemon Legends: Arceus ranked in third place with sales dropping by five percent.

Meanwhile, Dying Light 2 Stay Human fell from third to seventh place with sales dropping by 55 percent week-on-week. The only other new game of the week was GRID Legends which debuted in 18th place. 56 percent of its total physical sales were on PS5, followed by 26 percent on Xbox and 17 percent on PS4. Check out the Gfk’s top ten for the week ending February 26th below.

With over 130 different routes to race on, and almost just as many options for vehicles at 120, GRID Legends does decidedly give you plenty of content to sift through in its several modes. A story-driven main campaign, a career mode, a race creator, as well as surprisingly flexible online functionality all make this a solid package for a modern racing game. But the real depth shows up under the hood, where you can tinker with several fundamental functions of the game like whether or not damage affects how you drive, turning terminal damage on or off, opponent AI difficulty, flashback functionality, traction and stability controls, or specifically tune any one car you’ve picked outside of races and right before they start. This tuning encompasses the length of the gear ratio, softness or firmness of the springs, dampers, and anti-roll bars, as well as where you want the brake bias located if you want one at all.

"GRID Legends walks that fine line between arcade racing and simulation about as well as the series ever has, while managing to pack in notably more content than its 2019 predecessor."

Overall, it’s a great amount of customization to see in a game that isn’t a full-on simulation, but it might come at the cost of some of GRID’s identity. Unlike previous games, GRID Legends’ powerful customization options can sometimes make it feel like more of an empty vessel for you to create your own racing game within than any particular type of racing game itself. That may or may not bother you depending on how much you value customization, but suffice it to say, you can absolutely make GRID Legends play like an entirely different racing game if you so choose. I tend to like the default settings best, with occasionally turning up the opponent AI when I’m feeling frisky. As upgrades for your vehicles and mechanics unlock, the potential to really tweak things in your favor expands even more.

GRID Legends chooses a “behind the scenes” mock-umentary style series of full-motion videos to illustrate its narrative-focused story mode. Generically titled “Driven to Glory”, it basically puts you in the driver’s seat of 35 different racing events and uses filmed sequences featuring different characters being interviewed as the connective tissue between them. It shows a little bit of what they’re like before and after the interview cameras are rolling, which gives you some insight to their personalities, but that never adds up to much narratively speaking, and the cast is mostly populated by conventional versions of cliche’ racing game characters you’ve seen many times before.

It’s a neat idea though, and the scenes are certainly shot and edited well, and also probably saved the development team from spending a lot of time creating convincing character models that they could then use on actual racing stuff. But, these sequences rarely do any favors to the game outside of that and the novelty of them being FMVs falls off pretty fast. That said, what matters most are the races themselves, which are varied and a lot of fun. Driven to Glory is a great way to start the game, as it gives you a nice sampling of the different tracks, vehicles, and weather effects that you’ll encounter in the far more in-depth career mode, and long-term online.

"Driven to Glory is a great way to start the game, as it gives you a nice sampling of the different tracks, vehicles, and weather effects that you’ll encounter in the far more in-depth career mode, and long-term online."

It also helps you earn some cash and get your bearings – more so if you challenge yourself with less forgiving AI and functional damage. Damage itself does come at a literal cost in GRID Legends as you will lose some of your winnings for each race based on how much damage you incur. It’s rare, but you can even end up with a net loss of money after finishing an event if enough of the wrong circumstances line-up. This can further slow down an already somewhat leisurely progression system, so the game really encourages you to learn from your mistakes as fast as you can.

If the Story mode was the appetizer, then the career mode is the entre’. Here you’ll see a healthy selection of 4 careers, each unlockable after completing the prior one, and each including 8 categories with several events in each of those. Here you can use your unlocked vehicles, your various upgrades, and customizations to your advantage and really get into the meat of the game. In fact, if you can’t afford a certain vehicle yet, you can get it loaned to you early in exchange for a chunk of your winnings as long as it’s been unlocked. As you get more familiar with how different settings feel and different upgrades change your experience, the core of GRID Legends reveals itself as a satisfying, sensitive, and above all – rewarding racing game. Feeling different tires regain traction after overshooting a drift, outsmarting an aggressive opponent after they’ve blocked your previous passing attempts, and ultimately sailing into first place once you’ve truly mastered any given track all supply the exact right amount of dopamine that make you feel like you earned it while simultaneously challenging you to do better next time.

The flashback function can also help in a pinch to rewind certain mistakes, but I recommend using that sparingly as the satisfaction of recovering from an error will always feel better than pretending it didn’t happen. Some races in the career mode can get a little long in the tooth, especially the ones that are longer than 3 laps given that, while the tracks themselves are nicely varied from one another, there isn’t much variety within any given track. Career events are playable offline or in a public or private online match with cross-play which is a nice touch, and ensures that you can play them any way you want. On top of that is a rather flexible race creator that doesn’t quite get to Dirt 5 levels of depth, but it does come close. Any track, any time of day, sunshine, rain, snow, ramps, and boost gates can all be mixed and matched to your heart’s content and saved as a preset that you can revisit later.

"If the Story mode was the appetizer, then the career mode is the entre’. "

Across all modes, GRID’s nemesis system also makes a return where you can create enemies after one too many instances of contact who will then make more of an effort to bash into you throughout the race. In theory, this should introduce another level of tension into the races, but in my experience, nemesis rarely added up to much more than a minor nuisance regardless of difficulty settings. But it’s a good idea nonetheless, and does add a little bit of flavor – as do the ramps and boost gates that are present in some events, and the grittier, worn in presentation of the vehicles that actually make them look like the seasoned purveyors of speed and danger that they should.

Something that also colors GRID Legends a bit is the excellent soundtrack. The tracklist is populated with a handful of absolutely epic tracks that combine sweeping orchestral melodies with some tightly-produced drums and electric guitar underneath, and makes races feel like scenes from high-budget hollywood action movies. Dare I say, it even gave me Split/Second vibes much of the time. Bafflingly though, the soundtrack is seemingly missing from the custom races and the career mode, so it only seems to exist in the story mode. This is a massive shame considering that most of GRID’s core audience will undoubtedly be spending the majority of their time with the game outside of that mode. It also doesn’t help the little bit of monotony that can set in during some of the longer career events when they inexplicably lack any sort of background music. A way to turn the music on outside of story mode is a no-brainer for any upcoming patches, I think.

Speaking of things that need to be implemented, I was also puzzled to find the 120hz mode disabled and grayed out for me despite the same function working just fine for me on other games with the same PS5 and same TV. Performance of the game is generally good on PS5 though. HDR colors and sharp textures across the board come together in a pleasing way for objects you whiz by on the tracks, as well as the vehicles themselves which look and sound great all around. With that, and no major frame-dips or crashes to report, I’d say the graphics and performance of the game is an above average package overall that will be made even better if they manage to sort out the 120 frames performance mode issue.

"omething that also colors GRID Legends a bit is the excellent soundtrack. Bafflingly though, the soundtrack is seemingly missing from the custom races and the career mode, so it only seems to exist in the story mode."

GRID Legends will almost certainly bring a smile to the face of any fan of the series as it mostly feels like an improvement over the already great game from 2019. The sheer amount of tracks, vehicle types with their own handling to master, and customization options are enough to make it a worthy successor to its predecessor. But the bonuses of the nemesis system returning, the outstanding soundtrack, and the flexible cross-play online functionality make it a great racing game in a more macro sense, too. While it misses an opportunity to really connect with a more original story mode and fails to fully leverage some of its more unique characteristics, it still provides a rewarding and adaptable racing game that burns up the track in the areas that matter most.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

GRID Legends is shaping up to be an interesting evolution of the racing series, with various gameplay and visual improvements being promised over predecessors both on and off the racing course. Meanwhile, the Nemesis system introduced in 2019’s GRID (no, not that Nemesis system) comes back with enhancements of its own, while the biggest highlight is, of course, the new story-driven mode, Driven to Glory.

GRID Legends is out on February 25 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Check out the game’s PC requirements through here. You can also get more details on the racer in our recent interview with associate creative director Steven Brand through here.

The trailer shows glimpses of a number of circuits across various locations, several different cars, and another brief look at the story-drive Drive to Glory mode. Several other modes are also showcased, including Drift, Eliminator, Multiclass races, Race Creator, and more. Details on multiplayer are also shared, such as being able to drop directly into online races seamlessly, throughout over 250 Career mode events. Check out the trailer below for more details.

GRID Legends is out on February 25 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Check out the game’s PC requirements through here. We recently also had the chance to interview GRID Legends associate creative director Steven Brand- check it out through here to learn more about the game.