Sony on Monday revealed its common look again on the most-downloaded video video games to PlayStation for March, and it’s a superb snapshot of what formed video gaming’s dialog on the entire, not only for that console’s viewers, over the previous month. There are breakout hits alongside long-tail mainstays, with sports activities titles, as they all the time do, lurking on the edges.
Whether you have been with the vanguard of one in all these new releases otherwise you have been immersed in one thing else in the mean time, listed below are the highest seven video games downloaded by the greater than 100 million customers of the PlayStation Network. The full checklist, damaged down by platform and area, is right here.
Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 is the first breakout hit of 2024, launching in early February on PlayStation and PC and instantly going through server masses totaling a whole bunch of 1000’s of gamers in its first two weeks of launch.
Helldivers 2 is a cooperative multiplayer-only sport, markedly completely different from its predecessor, which was a top-down shooter that also drew a powerful viewers when it launched in 2015. The sequel takes the against-all-odds, tactically demanding setup of the primary sport and applies it in a extra partaking and immersive third-person perspective. It’s extra than simply the most-downloaded PlayStation Network sport, it’s additionally the biggest-ever Steam launch for a Sony-published title.
MLB The Show 24
MLB The Show 24, by SIE San Diego Studio, is a full-service baseball simulation that has been an annual winner amongst sports activities followers since its inception greater than 15 years in the past. That doesn’t imply its makers can relaxation on their laurels.
This yr, MLB The Show 24 introduces ladies as playable stars in all modes, making an enormous play to broaden their viewers to these followers who’ve additionally dreamed about being large leaguers, even figuring out they by no means had an opportunity at it. Women function prominently within the Storylines mode that was launched in 2023, a sequence of interactive vignettes which inform the lesser-known tales {of professional} gamers from baseball’s segregated period. They’re additionally current for Road to the Show, the sport’s actual jewel. It’s a wealthy, vicarious single-player fantasy wherein customers create their celebrity and take all of them the best way to the Major Leagues.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is, because the title says, a sequel — to one thing revealed 12 years in the past, however by no means forgotten by its cult viewers. This open-world fantasy journey just isn’t precisely a Soulslike. Still, there’s little surprise that the fandom that has gathered for that sub-genre over the previous decade, particularly for video games like 2022’s Elden Ring, would have a pure and fervent curiosity on this open-world epic.
WWE 2K24
WWE 2K24 has a troublesome activity forward of it yearly, which is principally, “How do you simulate something that is, uh, fake?” Somehow, 2K Sports has pulled it off going again three years, presenting skilled wrestling and all of its behind-the-scenes intrigue as movable items on a pleasant chess board of mayhem, as if it was, ahem, a “real” sport.
The large showpieces this yr embody a 40-year retrospective on Wrestlemania. MyRise, the created-player profession mode, as soon as once more delivers two distinctive storylines whether or not gamers select to play as a feminine or male celebrity. And those that benefit from the meta of professional wrestling — the angles, the matchings and the like that makes it such an athletic cleaning soap opera — will discover a lot to like in a refined MyGM mode that doesn’t make enormous adjustments, however is aware of methods to mud up the successes of the previous two video games with out turning over any teacups.
Madden NFL 24
Madden NFL 24 didn’t say goodbye when the final of Super Bowl LVIII’s confetti fell on the Kansas City Chiefs in early February. Thanks to the dwell service choices of its Ultimate Team mode, Madden outdrew its basketball brethren within the first month of the game’s offseason, at the least on PlayStation. American soccer is a year-round sport, prefer it or not, and its online game all the time has one thing on provide within the Madden Ultimate Team dwell service suite.
Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection
Few early-aughts console sequence are as beloved as Battlefront, and if you add the pure enchantment of Star Wars, it’s simple to know why this two-game bundle (comprising 2004’s Battlefront and 2005’s Battlefront II) could be such a success amongst nostalgic followers. Both video games have been dropped at trendy {hardware} in 2019 and 2020. But this assortment, if not truly a remake or a remaster, remains to be greater than a straight port and guarantees the multiplayer motion that made the primary two such a long-playing hit on PlayStation 2.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Here’s a shock. Rainbow Six Siege wasn’t within the prime 20 of this checklist the earlier month, however right here it exhibits up outdrawing EA Sports FC 24, NBA 2K24, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. This is partly attributable to the March launch of Operation Deadly Omen, the primary season of this dwell service sport’s ninth yr. And no, Rainbow Six Siege is nonetheless not a free-to-play sport. Whether Fortnite is spinning up its newest movie star crossover or Destiny 2 is ready on its subsequent large growth, Siege all the time has your six lined.
Featured picture: Helldivers 2 on Steam