PS Plus ‘Free’ Essential Games for August 2023 are excellent

The latest free-to-redeem PS Plus games for Essential subscribers include an excellent indie, a powerful game-making tool, and Tiger Woods.
Death's Door PS Plus Games August 2023

PlayStation has announced the newest slate of games that are free to redeem for subscribers to its PlayStation Plus (PS Plus) program in August 2023, and they’re pretty great. They include the excellent action-adventure game Death’s Door, Media Molecule’s impressive game and art creation software Dreams, as well as golfing simulator PGA Tour 2K23.

Death’s Door from developer Acid Nerve and publisher Devolver Digital was one of our favourite games of 2021, an isometric action-adventure game where you play a Raven in a bureaucratic afterlife. There’s a strong focus on challenging combat, as it takes quite a few notes from the Dark Souls style of gameplay, though it is certainly a bit more approachable with a charming, if dark, world to boot.

Dreams is the most recent creation game from Media Molecule (LittleBigPlanet), a powerful piece of software that lets you create your own freeform 3D environments, character models, music, whatever – and use them to build your own custom game or animation. A community-sharing feature lets you use things other people have made, and even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, the amount of unique games and experiences you can simply enjoy is staggering.

Media Molecule recently announced it was wrapping up its years-long support of the title, but that doesn’t mean the community is going away anytime soon. Now is a fantastic time to dive in and explore the wealth of excellent stuff in Dreams.

Subscribers can still claim the free PS Plus games for July 2023, which include Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Alan Wake Remastered, and Endling – Extinction is Forever until 31 July 2023.

Edmond was the founding managing editor of GamesHub. He was also previously at GameSpot for 13 years, where he was the Australian Editor and an award-winning video producer. You can follow him @EdmondTran