Sony is pulling PES 2019 from this month's PlayStation Plus free games line-up

If you're a PS4 owner and PlayStation Plus subscriber hoping to settle down with a quality football simulator next month, you're out of luck. In an unprecedented move, Sony is swapping out its line-up of PS Plus games for July.

Subscribers had been promised free access to Konami's PES 2019 football game as part of the online subscription package this month, but it's now being removed and replaced. Instead, you will be getting the vastly different Detroit: Become Human Digital Deluxe edition from developers Quantic Dream.

"We are making a swap to the PS Plus games lineup for July," an update to the previous PS Plus post reads. 

"This month, we are adding Detroit: Become Human Digital Deluxe Edition, which also includes Heavy Rain, to the July games lineup instead of Pro Evolution Soccer 2019. We apologise for any inconvenience."

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Mystery moves

It's a mysterious and rare move for Sony. So why did it take place? There was a little backlash to PES 2019's inclusion initially (though TechRadar staff were quite looking forward to thrashing each other on the pitch), and its presence would have made for a fully sports-orientated PS Plus month. The second game remains unchanged, being indie car racing game Horizon Chase Zero.

In addition, despite recently being on sale, Detroit: Become Human arguably offers better value to subscribers than PES 2019 – it was released as a AAA exclusive initially, and its Digital Deluxe edition also includes its spiritual predecessor, the narrative-and-choice driven crime adventure Heavy Rain in its enhanced PS4 form.

It's worth noting that Quantic Dream's games had, until recently, been PlayStation exclusives. Last month saw Heavy Rain hitting PC, and Detroit: Become Human will be joining it in "the fall". A third game in the loosely connected series, Beyond: Two Souls, will also hit PC platforms on July 22. It's possible that Sony wanted to give them one last hurrah on its platform before they head off to pastures new.

Though divisive (and somewhat controversial) at launch, Detroit: Become Human is undeniably an interesting title, being a story driven thriller set in a near future where human-like androids live among us. It's not the beautiful game, but it's a worthy game nonetheless. Give it a try.

• Detroit: Become Human review: brilliant but flawed