Easily one of the best deals today in the video game space is Microsoft’s Game Pass for the Xbox platform. Paid up front for a year or via a monthly subscription, players who buy into the program have access to not only brand new titles, but also software going all the way back to the original Xbox that released in 2001.

For a company that dominated the console market in terms of hardware and software sales in the last generation, Sony had yet to come up with an equivalent competitor. If you’re of the lucky few who can find, or afford, a PlayStation 5, you have access to a small number of greatest hits from the PS4 era – Batman: Arkham Knight among them – and then there’s PS Now.

Like Game Pass, PS Now is a subscription service which costs anywhere between $6-$12 USD a month. However, unlike Game Pass where you can download everything in its catalog to your system of choice, PS Now only allows the player to do that with select software while the rest has to be streamed.

Starting tomorrow, Marvel’s Avengers will join the service and will remain there until July 5th. It does not state in the news release issued from the PlayStation Blog if you can download it with your subscription, however the terms of PS Now state that all PS4 games can be played either way. Marvel’s Avengers also has a free upgrade path to the PlayStation 5 version, so presumably when played on that console, you’ll have access to the best version.

Marvel’s Avengers will also be joined by Borderlands 3 and The Long Dark tomorrow, and to sweeten the deal, players in select regions can start a free trial of PS Now beginning Wednesday, April 7th. This offer, unfortunately, does not apply to Canadian residents.

Since its release, Marvel’s Avengers, a game that mixes a traditional campaign with the ongoing Games as a Service model, has struggled with retaining a consistent player base. Over the months since its launch though, the developers at Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal have made significant changes, especially when it comes to the next-generation version, that have made it a much better experience overall. On top of adding two new heroes in Kate Bishop and Clint “Hawkeye” Barton, you can now replay the campaign, and when played on a device like the PlayStation 5, load times are significantly reduced.

With some new momentum building from the next-generation release, adding Marvel’s Avengers to PS Now with a free trial seems like a smart move to attract on the fence players. If they like it, they may stick with PS Now until it leaves the service, or perhaps pick up the game on its own. This summer is when things will start to heat up again for the game with the release of a new villain sector and a raid for those who have maxed out their heroes’ power levels. Later on, Black Panther, not to mention Spider-Man – the latter of which is exclusive to the PlayStation family of systems – are also set to arrive.

Marvel’s Avengers is available now for PlayStation 4/5, the Xbox One and Series family of consoles, Google Stadia and PC.

via PlayStation Blog