A new month indubitably means a new selection of PS Plus games. PS Plus' April games selection (Days Gone, Oddworld: Soulstorm, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War) is available to claim until May 3, but then the new games take over.
All-in-all, PS Plus' May 2021 games are much better than its May 2020 games, where the service had a rare bad moment and was even petitioned to change the game. That's not happening here, as the May 2021 games include Battlefield 5 and Stranded Deep for PS4, as well as Wreckfest for PS5. At first glance, there's no real similarity between a triple-A shooter, a survival game, and a derby racing game (speaking to PS Plus' variety appeal), but there's one single strand that connects them: they're all "early" in their own way.
Wreckfest and Stranded Deep
With this idea in mind, it's pretty easy to see with Wreckfest. Not only was it in Early Access for 4 years, this release on PS Plus is a form of "early access" as well. Originally, the PS5 version of Wreckfest was set to release on June 1, and it seems that's still the case. Players can claim it for free through PS Plus this month, but anyone who actually wants to buy it will need to wait until June 1. Perhaps because it would just be an upgrade, more or less, yet it's worth highlighting how big of a deal PS Plus Launch games are, and that Wreckfest is practically a PS Plus pre-launch game.
For Stranded Deep, it's a bit more straightforward. It released on PC in Early access back in 2015, and while its PS4 and Xbox One versions got a full release in April 2020, the PC version is still in early access to date. In other words, it's the full version of an Early Access game on another platform, or as a simpler connection, it's a game with a long history connected to Early Access. As such, "early access" and "early" are strong connections between these two games, but of course, that begs the question of how a triple-A shooter connects to these games.
Battlefield 5: Hitting it Early for Something Else
Indeed, the headliner of the May selection is Battlefield 5, but it has never been in early access or anything of the like. However, just as players can check out Wreckfest before its official PS5 release, players get to check out Battlefield 5 before the next game's official reveal(and further away release). Many insiders and leaks have been recently teasing that Battlefield 6 would be revealed soon, and the inclusion of BF5 here cannot be coincidence.
There's something poetic to releasing the game for free, and then showing players sometime this month what's coming next. That's just speculation, of course, but Battlefield 6 is confirmed to be in development. Battlefield 5 is arriving "early" ahead of its reveal, something to play until and after then, so whenever it's revealed is just part of that.
It's a loose connection between the three games, to be sure, but it's these types of connections that make PS Plus unique. Not to get too ahead, the quality, connections, and variety of PS Plus' May 2021 games continue to bode well for the service.
PS Plus subscribers typically get a few free games every month.