Sony’s April Surprise – Lords of the Fallen and Tomb Raider Lead a Revamped PS Plus Strategy.

Sony has a tendency to announce its PlayStation Plus games on a monthly basis with the quiet assurance of a business that knows its subscribers will still show up. That confidence feels a little unearned most of the time. It’s a different story in April 2026. When the lineup—Lords of the Fallen, Tomb Raider I–III Remastered, and Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream—was released on April 1st, the online response was telling. Several Reddit users had to confirm that it wasn’t a sophisticated April Fools’ joke. “A joke for April Fools’ Day? One user wrote, seemingly genuinely surprised, “Because they’re actually good.” Such a reaction is not the result of chance.

It’s not just the individual titles that add interest to this month’s selection. It’s the range. Lords of the Fallen, a 2023 action role-playing game from HexWorks (not to be confused with the 2014 game that shares its exact name, which continues to be one of the more confusing naming choices in recent gaming history), is a genuinely highly regarded Soulslike. It features hundreds of weapons, nine character classes, and a dual-world mechanic that allows players to switch between the realm of the living and the Umbral, a shadow version.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’s light and dark world system was designed for those who felt that Elden Ring’s atmosphere wasn’t sufficiently gloomy. Imagine a heavier, grimmer version of that system. HexWorks released a new patch on April 3rd specifically to enhance co-op sessions because the game was a commercial success at launch. This timing suggests the studio anticipated a wave of new players and wanted the experience ready for them.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a completely different kind of product. These are ports of games that debuted on the original PlayStation in the mid-to-late 1990s. Many subscribers in their thirties and forties played these games as kids, sitting next to a TV in a darkened living room while Lara Croft explored Peruvian ruins and Egyptian tombs depicted in chunky, expressive polygons. The remastered versions, which were first made available in 2024, offer updated visuals by default but retain the original graphics at the touch of a button. Additionally, a new challenge mode adds replay value that was absent from the originals by allowing players to replay levels with altered conditions. Depending on your age, this collection might appeal to you in different ways. For some, it might be pure nostalgia, while for others, it might be an intriguing piece of gaming history. Either way, it’s a significant addition.

Observing Sony’s monthly game selections over the last year or so gives the impression that the company has been working to clarify what PS Plus truly entails as a value proposition. With new Microsoft games available on day one, Xbox Game Pass has long been seen as the more generous subscription service. Sony’s strategy has historically placed more emphasis on catalog depth than immediacy, which occasionally results in months with sparse free offerings. April doesn’t feel skinny. In a single monthly batch, five games total—including Tomb Raider I, II, and III separately—are available for the PS4 and PS5. They include action role-playing games, souls-like games, nostalgic remasters, and cooperative anime games. Compared to most months, that is a wider spread.

The third game, Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream, is most likely to cause a significant rift along franchise loyalty lines. Based on the anime series, it is a live-service cooperative role-playing game that can accommodate up to twenty players at once in groups of five. It is likely to be well received by fans of Sword Art Online’s unique style of virtual-world narrative. It’s the month’s wild card for everyone else, including, one suspects, reaching a subset of the subscriber base that Lara Croft and Lords of the Fallen don’t typically draw.

It’s difficult to ignore the fact that this lineup comes at a time when Sony is dealing with real pressure in the subscription market. Game Pass keeps growing. Silently, Apple Arcade continues to add games. A single successful month doesn’t address any structural issues regarding Sony’s long-term strategy for its gaming service, and the case for keeping a PS Plus subscription needs to be updated on a regular basis. It does, however, serve as a reminder to subscribers of their initial motivation for signing up. One PS5-only game in this lineup, Lords of the Fallen, would have been a respectable monthly offering on its own. The addition of remastered Tomb Raider, a franchise with thirty years of cultural significance, gives April the impression that Sony made an effort.

It remains to be seen if this represents a more significant change in Sony’s monthly game selection process or if next month will see a return to the kind of mediocre choices that cause courteous apathy on gaming forums. All PS Plus subscribers, regardless of tier, can currently access the April lineup through May 4th. In particular, Lords of the Fallen, which is expected to have a sequel later this year, is worth purchasing before the window closes. It seems like a good use of time to become acquainted with the world now, before that sequel is released.