Video game launches aren't as simple as they were 20 to 30 years. Studios don't just box them up, ship them out, and you can go grab whatever you want from your local video game store. There's a litany of things to consider. Whether elements of your game should be free-to-play, or if the whole thing should be. Whether to launch DLC and if it should cost extra. Plus, whether a brand new game should be available through a subscription service such as Xbox Game Pass.
A relatively new option when it comes to PlayStation is launching a game as a PS Plus freebie. Giving it away for free, either for the first month and then taking access away like Knockout City, or free to keep forever if you pick it up in the first month like Fall Guys. Destruction AllStars opted to take the Fall Guys route, but new evidence would suggest it hasn't worked out too well.
As highlighted by Mr_WeeWoo on Reddit, files within Destruction AllStars latest updates that were presumably accidentally visible while being applied have hinted it could soon be free-to-play. If you logged in and updated while the game was down for maintenance, the prefix “BS_F2P_CHALLENGE” could be seen attached to some of AllStars' challenges.
Destruction AllStars does feel a little like a free-to-play game with a $20 price tag. Although the game was free if you picked it up in the first month, and has been on sale since then, people just don't seem to be interested. Launching less than three months after the console hit the market as a PS5 exclusive also wouldn't have helped since very few people had managed to bag themselves PlayStation's newest system by that point.
As for games launching on PS Plus, that could be something we see more often starting very soon. PlayStation is expected to launch its very own take on Game Pass at some point in the next few months. The service will likely merge PS Plus with PS Now, leaving the name and the branding for the latter behind. The games you will be able to get for free through PS Plus next month have already been revealed.