Ever since Sony launched its paid Playstation Plus subscription service, it has offered a variety of premium features for a monthly fee. As well as granting access to online multiplayer, PS Plus has always offered its subscribers exclusive discounts on the PlayStation Store, free games each month, and 100 gigabytes worth of Cloud saves.
In an effort to merge its PlayStation Now and PS Plus platforms, PS Plus’ three-tiered system is one of the most dramatic shake-ups of the service to date. It has successfully widened subscribers’ gaming catalogues, and expanded upon its variety of online features, including access to classic games and the ability to trial new releases. It’s a clear answer to Xbox’s widely embraced and successful Game Pass service, but is it worth the fuss, and does it hold a candle to one of gaming's best-ever value propositions?
Review
As PlayStation Plus is an ongoing online subscription, there is currently no review on the site. Despite this, lead features editor Jade King and features editor Eric Switzer are both long-time subscribers with lots to say about their experiences with the service. Since Sony decided to dramatically pivot PS Plus to a three-tiered system, both editors were quick to compare it to Xbox’s much-lauded Game Pass.
PS Plus subscribers have always received ‘free’ monthly games as part of their subscriptions. The Extra and Premium tiers expand upon the number of games you have access to with a pretty generous catalogue of games. Nonetheless, Jade King still believes this is not enough to “justify the increased asking price”. Soon after its revamp, she criticised the service as “feeling rushed” and described its launch as a “muddled and disjointed” answer to the industry’s recent shift towards subscription-based ecosystems.
PlayStation Plus Premium probably isn’t the Xbox Game Pass rival Sony was hoping for it to be. It’s a perfectly passable service, packing a number of modern games and beloved classics under its umbrella for a reasonable monthly asking price, but it just doesn’t command the same cultural presence as its Xbox rival.
She seems to agree with Eric Switzer’s opinion that it’s a “rebrand of PS Now and PS+ rather than a new service” in his critique of the new PS+.
It’s the strong opinion of both that PS Plus needs to release newer titles in order to keep up. Eric believes that there is an audience for older PlayStation titles, but “it can’t begin to compare to the audience for new games.” Despite offering its subscribers decent value, Jade believes what’s there “doesn’t give hardcore players much of a reason to subscribe when Game Pass is dishing up new games we’ve never seen before on a regular basis.”
Time Expenditure
Although a little lacking when compared to the fantastic value proposition of competing services, PlayStation Plus still offers its subscribers decent value and a huge library of games to get stuck into. As there are so many games available for you to try out, you can lose hundreds of hours exploring a myriad of different genres from a range of gaming’s greatest hits over the past several decades.
It favours all types of gamers looking for any type of experience, from the short and sweet humble indie gem to the hundred-hour-long narrative-driven blockbuster. The rotation of games (for Extra and Premium) is clearly denoted to players, meaning that you will know ahead of time when a game may be leaving the service.
For the Essential tier, you’ll get to play and keep one PS5 game and two PS4 games each month - though the quality of these games can sometimes be a mixed bag. You can sink many hours into them and play them whenever you feel, as long as you have an active subscription.
Some of the best games to jump into on the PS Extra and Premium tiers at the time of writing include; the adorable indie cat simulator, Stray; the brilliant remake of Demon’s Souls; and the punishingly atmospheric Returnal. There are also a variety of top-tier third-party games to spend some time in, including Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Deathloop, and some fantastic indie experiences such as Celeste and Dead Cells.
Cost
Since the rebranding of the service in June 2022, PlayStation Plus has been split into three tiers, with each offering a variety of different perks at different costs. PS Plus Essential is the cheapest of the three at a monthly price of $9.99, offering two PS4 titles and one PS5 title each month and access to online play, cloud storage and exclusive discounts. PS Plus Extra expands upon this with an expanded games catalogue for $14.99 each month. The final tier, PS Plus Premium, offers all the benefits of the previous two while also granting access to a Classics catalogue of games, limited game trials, and the ability to stream games, all for the monthly price of $17.99. Details of all three tiers and what they offer specifically can be found below.
PS Plus Essential | PS Plus Extra | PS Plus Premium |
|---|---|---|
$9.99 Per Month | $14.99 per month | $17.99 per month |
Monthly Games (Usually one PS5 and two PS4 games) | Monthly Games (Usually one PS5 and two PS4 games) | Monthly Games (Usually one PS5 and two PS4 games) |
Online Multiplayer | Online Multiplayer | Online Multiplayer |
Cloud Storage | Cloud Storage | Cloud Storage |
Exclusive Discounts | Exclusive Discounts | Exclusive Discounts |
Games Catalogue including up to 400 PS4 and PS5 games | Games Catalogue including up to 400 PS4 and PS5 games | |
Classics Catalogue including access to Playstation, PS2, PS3, and PSP titles | ||
Cloud Streaming | ||
Time-limited Game Trials |
What Subscribers Are Saying
It’s Not Game Pass… And That’s Okay - Alpay Dedezade
Despite being clearly inferior to Game Pass’ day-one releases of new games, PS Plus still has great value and a lot to offer. On average, the quality of the free monthly games on the essential tier has remained decent, and the large game catalogues of Extra and Premium allow you to play a vast library of awesome indie and blockbuster titles that you would have otherwise never played or completely missed. Sure, it’s a little disappointing that it doesn't offer day one heavy hitters like Game Pass, but what’s there is more than worth the price of admission.
A Mixed Bag Of Offerings - Hilton Webster
On one hand, PS Plus is pretty great. You're guaranteed multiple free games each month at the lowest tier which usually comes in a great variety of games big and small. Higher tiers come with an equally higher price, but the offerings don't quite scale. Emulation can be dodgy on some older games, and PS3 games can only be streamed. It's great to pick up if you love the monthly games, though higher tiers are harder to justify.
A Good Deal... With Some Caveats - Axel Bosso
The different tiers added to PS Plus came with tons of games, and that's always good. There are really great titles of all genres here, and more are included frequently. You'll never be out of games to try. What's not so good is that we LatAm users don't have access to the PS3 catalogue. It was announced that we were going to be able to download them, but that never happened. Also, the Classic list of games could be much better, with very few titles since the service started.