Between the release of Astro bot and the seemingly accidental reveal of the PS5 Pro, you may have missed the details of Sony’s planned festivities for PlayStation’s 30th anniversary.
A Official PlayStation Blog Postwritten by Isabelle Tomatis, vice president of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, details what else we can expect from such a monumental anniversary for the PlayStation brand.
What immediately struck me as a fan of the best racing games is a completely new way to Gran Turismo 7, through a free trial period known as My first Gran Turismo. The trial, which launches sometime this holiday, will feature a select number of cars, tracks, and events “that evoke the nostalgia and excitement of the first-ever GT experience.” The game will be available to all PS5 and PS4 players, so it doesn’t appear that a PS Plus subscription is required.
In addition, a bunch of digital soundtracks from PlayStation titles are coming to Spotify for the first time. From October to January, we can expect the soundtracks for God of War (2005), God of War 2, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Twisted Metal, Starhawk, And Unit 13 to hit the music streaming service. They will also be available via Apple Music and Amazon Music.
Another interesting debut is ‘Shapes of Play’. This is a trio of physical goods designed by PlayStation’s console hardware team. Shapes of Play: Battle is a competitive board game, while Shapes of Play: Create is a set of magnetic blocks that can be arranged into different shapes. Finally, there’s Shapes of Play: Recharge, which appears to be a lineup of soft stress toys shaped like PlayStation’s iconic face buttons. That last one is actually my favorite.
Finally, there will be a free online multiplayer weekend from September 21-22, allowing players who don’t have a PS Plus subscription to jump online at no extra cost. There will be several online tournaments for games, including NBA 2K25, MLB The Show 24, Tekken 8, And Fight for Guilty Gear. If you participate in any of these tournaments, you’ll also earn a number of unique PlayStation 30th anniversary avatar icons.
And if these announcements leave you disappointed, fear not. The blog post confirms that this is just a taste of what we can expect from the PlayStation 30th anniversary celebrations, and that more announcements will be made “in the near future.” New Monkey escape, then, please?