Nearly a year into the PS5 lifecycle, even the most hardcore of Sony fans may have forgotten about game trials. After all, the feature was first introduced to PS Plus subscribers in 2010. The PS5 is now getting a piece of that trial action.
As reported by Eurogamer, the site noticed two PS5 games were up on the PlayStation store, classified as trial versions. This includes Death Stranding: Director’s Cut and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. For the time being, these trials only exist in the U.K.
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Unlike a similar trial feature first introduced on the PS3, Sony has opted to begin the trial timer the moment a user elects to download the game.
For example, Death Stranding: Director’s Cut’s trial is six hours and weighs in at 68GB. If it takes three hours to download the game, gamers are left with three hours to play. Users with slower internet connections may not even have the opportunity to play at all before reaching the title screen. For context, Sackboy: A Big Adventure’s trial is slightly shorter, clocking in at five hours.
There is a potential workaround that’s been discovered by users, though. According to a Reddit post by user jsnals, gamers can get around this by making a new account within the same region as a main account. After selecting “download trial” from the newly created account, switch back to the main account and select “download trial” once again. This will reset the timer, giving users the ability to play the game for the full allotted six hours.
Considering the state of the trial feature, it’s likely Sony limited it to one region to work out the kinks. Perhaps it has some back-end issues that need to be resolved, as evidenced by the workaround above. Once fixed, if it is an oversight, Sony might bring it to other regions.
Tom's Guide has reached out to Sony for further clarification. We will update this story upon reply.
