PlayStation Plus April 2018: Free PS4 Games Include 'Max Max,' 'Trackmania Turbo'

Another month, another batch of free games for PlayStation Plus subscribers. As always, Sony is offering a handful of free games across three different platforms to anyone who subscribes to the company’s paid online service.

After a strong March that included fan favorites like “Ratchet & Clank” and “Bloodborne,” April will bring two sizable games to PS4 owners, per the PlayStation Blog.

First up is 2016’s “Trackmania Turbo,” the last and biggest attempt at bringing the popular, PC-exclusive driving franchise to consoles. Normally $40, “Trackmania Turbo” has players compete with each other on gravity-defying tracks in multiplayer time attack races.

Since everyone is just trying to get the best time, “Trackmania” is not a traditional racing game. Cars pass right through each other instead of colliding when they touch, for example. The game came with hundreds of built-in tracks, but a robust track creator means multiplayer sessions largely take place on wild racecourses made by other players.

It is not as deep or customizable as “Trackmania 2” on PC, but as a free alternative, it works.

The other free PS4 game in April is “Mad Max,” an open-world action game that came out not long after 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” but is not a direct adaptation of the film. Players can build and deck out Max’s car, the Magnum Opus, with several different weapons in their quest to survive in the film series’s post-apocalyptic wasteland.

There are some connections to “Fury Road” here and there, but it is largely an original story. There is combat outside of vehicles, but much of the game aims to recreate the kind of vehicular mayhem found in the Oscar-winning film that came out the same year.

PS3 and PlayStation Vita owners get two free games as well. The former will be graced with “In Space we Brawl” and “Toy Home,” while the latter will get “99 Vidas” and “Q*Bert Rebooted.” Sony announced back in February that PS3 and Vita will stop getting free games in March 2019.

PlayStation Plus costs $60 per year. It is required to play PlayStation 4 games online, but comes with perks such as free games and occasional discounts. Each month’s become available on the first Tuesday of that month.