Sony has named November's PlayStation Plus Monthly Games, and it's a three-game lineup that covers a lot of ground: a zombie RPG set in Los Angeles, a trilogy of classic Lara Croft adventures, and a deckbuilding roguelite.
According to the PlayStation Blog, the November games are:
- Dead Island 2 (PS5, PS4)
- Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered (PS5, PS4)
- Monster Train 2 (PS5 only)
All three are playable from Tuesday, November 3 to Monday, November 30. Before then, members have until Monday, November 2 to add October's games, F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896 and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2, to their library.
The three games
Push Square reports Sony is pitching Dead Island 2 as the month's headliner. Sony describes it as an extensive RPG set in a zombie-overrun Los Angeles, built around brutal melee combat and a large arsenal of zombie-slaying weapons, with quests, eccentric survivors and online co-op for up to three players. Push Square's own PS5 review gave it 7/10, calling it "a fun and simple zombie-slasher experience" whose RPG elements and loot cycle are weaker than its setting and combat.
Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered collects what Sony calls the Darkness Trilogy: The Last Revelation, Chronicles and The Angel of Darkness. Push Square notes the first two were PS1 games and The Angel of Darkness a PS2 one. You can switch between the original polygonal models and the remastered graphics at any time. Push Square also scored this collection 7/10, saying the ports "aren't perfect" but that a generous set of modern options balances that out, and that having The Angel of Darkness "in a good enough state to revisit might be worth the price alone."
Monster Train 2 is a single-player deckbuilding roguelite in which clans of former angels and demons ride newly forged trains through Hell, Heaven and the Abyss to stop the Titans who have seized control of Heaven. Sony highlights five new clans, each with its own strengths, and three vertical levels to defend. Push Square notes the PC version holds a Metacritic rating of 87. It is the only one of the three that is PS5 only.
There's a timing bonus for Monster Train 2 players, too. On the same day as Sony's post, developer Shiny Shoe announced The Punished, a paid clan due November 10 that it says will be the game's final post-launch update. That lands one week into the game's run on PS Plus.
How to keep them
One practical reminder from Push Square: Monthly Games only stay in your library if you add them while they're on offer. Redeem them before they rotate out at the start of December and you can keep playing them for as long as your PS Plus membership stays active.
That makes the two deadlines worth noting. October's games disappear from the offer after November 2, and November's arrive the next day and stay until November 30. Sony hasn't said anything yet about December's lineup.
Mason's take: This is the rare Monthly Games lineup where each slot does a different job. Dead Island 2 is the broad-appeal name on the banner, Tomb Raider IV–VI is the nostalgia pick for anyone who grew up with the PlayStation originals, and Monster Train 2 is the critics' choice, exactly the kind of game a subscription is good at putting in front of people who would never have gone looking for a deckbuilder. If I could only claim one, it would be Monster Train 2, and it's a good sign that Sony made room for a genre like that at all.
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