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Sony’s PlayStation Plus is a widely popular service that the majority of PlayStation console owners are subscribed to. But PlayStation Plus is more than just a subscription service.
It comes with numerous benefits that you definitely want to be able to take advantage of if you own a PS4 or PS5. But what exactly is PlayStation Plus? In this guide, we break the whole thing down. Explaining your different subscription options, pricing, features, and more.
What Is PlayStation Plus?
Sony’s PlayStation Plus is a service that you subscribe to for your PlayStation console. It’s available for both PS4 and PS5 owners and serves as a way to get free games every single month just for subscribing to the service.
One of its other benefits is online play. PlayStation Plus is required for online gaming on PS4 and PS5. Meaning if you want to connect to the internet for multiplayer games like Call Of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, and more, you need to be subscribed to PlayStation Plus.
Beyond being a prerequisite for accessing online gaming capabilities, PlayStation Plus will afford you at least one or two free games every single month. And as long as you stay subscribed you will get to keep access to those games.
PlayStation Plus subscribers also get special discounts on games that non-subscribers don’t get. Overall, you want to be subscribed if you want the best online PlayStation experience.
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What does PlayStation Plus cost?
The cost of PlayStation Plus varies based on which package you go with. As of now Sony only offers PlayStation Plus in a single plan. But the company just announced today that it will offer a revised set of plans later this year – PlayStation Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium. The pricing also varies based on how long you want to subscribe.
For instance, if you go with a 1-month subscription, the normal cost of the Essential plan is $9.99 a month. And will generally be the cost no matter where you get your subscription.
If you go with the three-month sub it usually costs $24.99. And if you go with the 12-month sub it usually costs $59.99. Again though, those are the normal prices for the service. And you can sometimes find the subscriptions on sale.
Even if you don’t find them on sale, the 12-month subscription is the best value. Because you’re spending $60 for 12 months worth of the service. If you buy that in 1-month amounts, you spend double that. So if you know you’re going to keep it for a year at the least, going with the 12-month option saves you the most money.
If you want to bump things up, you can go for the Extra plan at $14.99 a month, $39.99 for three months, and $99.99 for 12 months. Lastly, the Premium plan will be $17.99 a month, $49.99 for three months, or $119.99 for 12 months.
What are the free games PlayStation Plus gets every month?
This will change from month to month. You have the whole month to claim them, as well. So if you don’t grab them right away, don’t worry. As you won’t be rushed to claim your free games the moment they go live.
That being said, as long as you claim the title that’s being given away each month, you’ll have access to it forever. Even if you cancel your subscription at any point in the future, the games never leave your library. You won’t be able to play them, however, unless your subscription is active.
Most months, Sony will give away at least three games. Usually one for PS5 and two others that are geared towards PS4, but can also be played on PS5. On particularly good months, Sony will give away more than three games. Though, this is less typical than the former.
You can read about the most recent games added to the service below.
PlayStation Plus Games for December 2022
December is a month of some really good titles for subscribers. The games you can claim this month are Biomutant, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and Divine Knockout. All three games will be available on December 6 and will be claimable until January 3.
PlayStation Plus Games for January 2023
For January, subscribers have access to Axiom Verge 2, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Fallout 76. These will be available to add to your library until February 7 when the new games are swapped in.
PlayStation Plus games for February 2023
The free monthly games for February were just announced on the morning of February 1. This month, subscribers are getting four free games to claim instead of the usual three. This includes Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Mafia Definitive Edition, OlliOlliWorld, and Evil Dead: The Game. Subscribers can claim these games beginning February 7, and will be able to claim up until March 7.
PlayStation Plus games for March 2023
Sony has some great titles coming to the subscription this month, with Battlefield 2042, Code Vein, and Minecraft Dungeons being your three titles. You can claim them all with your PlayStation Plus subscription starting on March 7.
PlayStation Plus games for April 2023
The new games for PS Plus subscribers are available as of this week, having been added to the lineup on Tuesday, April 4. The games you can claim for free this month include Meet Your Maker, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Tails of Iron. You can claim all three titles until May 1.
PlayStation Plus games for May 2023
May’s monthly games included GRID Legends, Chivalry II, and Descenders. A little something for everyone.
PlayStation Plus games for June 2023
June’s games include NBA 2K23, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Trek To Yomi. You can claim these games until July 4 when the new monthly titles are added.
PlayStation Plus Games for July 2023
Sony has officially announced the monthly games for July this year, dropping onto PlayStation Plus on July 4. The games will include Alan Wake Remastered, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Endling – Extinction is Forever.
PlayStation Plus Games for December 2023
You have just a few more days to claim the free games for the month of December. These free titles include LEGO 2K Drive, Powerwash Simulator, and Sable. These will be available to claim until January 1, 2024.
PlayStation Plus Games for January 2024
Sony has now officially announced what games are dropping on the service for members for the month of January 2024. There are going to be three games you can claim and like every other month, so long as your subscription remains active you’ll be able to continue playing them. After you claim they will stay in your library for good but will only be playable while you have an active subscription.
January’s three games will be A Plague Tale: Requiem, Nobody Saves The World, and Evil West. You can learn a little more about each game in PlayStation’s official blog post.
Do I have to install free PlayStation Plus games?
No. You aren’t required to install the games onto your PS4 or PS5 to ensure they stay with you. Claiming them for your library is all that’s required to keep those games.
Then you can routinely play them as you see fit. As noted above if you ever cancel your subscription to PlayStation Plus, you lose access to the games that were offered for free as part of the subscription. But, once you start it back up again access to those games is immediately restored.
So, they stay with you forever. This is especially important for those with a PS5 given the console’s lower amount of available storage space on the SSD. You can help offset that if you install an M.2 NVMe SSD in the expandable slot.
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Is PlayStation Plus required for all online gaming on PlayStation?
No. Some games will not require a subscription. Some will. For example, you don’t need a subscription to PlayStation Plus to play Final Fantasy XIV on PS4 or PS5.
You do need a subscription to that game specifically to play it. But for example, if this is the only online game you play on PS4 or PS5, then you can simply pay for the sub to that game, and not worry about PlayStation Plus.
If you play other online games, like Call of Duty, Warframe, Destiny 2, The Division, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, and others, you will need to be subscribed to PlayStation Plus if you want the online features for those games. Also worth noting is that Sony will generally list which games in the store require a Plus subscription and which ones don’t.
So you can use that to determine whether to subscribe or download the game.
Does PlayStation Plus have a free trial period?
Sony does offer a trial period for PlayStation Plus. But there are a couple of things to know about that. First, the trial period lasts for 14 days. So you get the capability to test it out for two weeks before you need to pay for your first month of the service.
The trial period is also only available for first-time subscribers. That means if you’ve ever subscribed to it in the past, you won’t be able to utilize the trial when you re-sub.
Rather you will end up paying for the subscription to start up right away. And because these are tied to your PSN account, you can’t simply start up a new email account and sign up for the free trial that way as you can with some streaming services.
What are some of the other PlayStation Plus member benefits?
In addition to special discounts, free games every month, and availability of online play, you also get a few more benefits with PlayStation Plus. However, this will also change based on which tier of the new plans you choose.
One of the more useful benefits is the increase in cloud storage for saved game data. If you subscribe to the service you have 100GB of cloud storage at your disposal for your game save data. That is a lot for just game save files.
And it’ll come in handy if you have both a PS4 and a PS5 and end up with hundreds of games and saves for all of them. You also get exclusive in-game content that you wouldn’t normally get. Such as character skins and other loot. And there’s also a feature called Share Play.
As the name suggests, Share Play lets you share your gaming experience with a friend. A good example of how this works is inviting your friend to play a game you’re in with SharePlay. You can then let them control the game. Which could be useful if you are stuck on a particularly challenging quest.
PlayStation Plus benefits per plan
As for plan-exclusive benefits, this varies. PS Plus Essential is exactly what you have with the original PlayStation Plus. Monthly free games, cloud storage for game saves online play, and game discounts. If you bump up to PS Plus Extra, you get all that and a catalog of 400 games to play including blockbuster titles from PlayStation Studios and third-party partners. These games can be downloaded for play.
PS Plus Premium meanwhile will give you the most features. You get the benefits of both previous plans, in addition to another 340 games in the catalog. This new set of games will include PS3 games for cloud streaming as well as PS1, PS2, and PSP games for download and cloud streaming.
On top of all this, Premium members also get cloud streaming for PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS4 games where PS Now is currently available. Streaming will be usable on PS4, PS5, and PC. All tiers of PlayStation Plus will get the Game Help feature which is a really neat feature to have. If you get stuck on a certain part of a game you’re playing, you can bring up the Game Help tips to give you a hint on what to do. This is only for PS5 however. So it won’t be accessible on PS4 or PS4 Pro.
If you’re an Extra or Premium member, you also get access to the Game Catalog and Classics Catalog. There’s also the Ubisoft+ Classics catalog which is a collection of Ubisoft games that even includes some more recent titles. Although, not necessarily the newest ones. Finally, if you subscribe to Premium, you will also get access to Game Trials and Cloud Streaming.
The Game Trials in particular can be great if you’re considering picking up a specific game. There won’t be trials available for everything. But it’s worth checking out the trials every so often to see what’s in there. As it might include something you’ve had your eye on.
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How do the PlayStation Plus game trials work?
Game trials will be short demo-like offerings that will let you play a specific section of a game for the express purpose of checking it out before purchasing. Game trials will change from time to time but for the most part, they stick around for quite a while.
If you decide to check out a Game trial, you’ll have access to anywhere between one hour and five hours of content. How long you can play and how much content the trial includes is at the discretion of the game studio. There are currently over 100 game trials you can access including some newer releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, Sonic Frontiers, Hogwarts Legacy, and A Plague Tale: Requiem.
When do the new PlayStation Plus plans launch?
Sony will launch the newly announced PlayStation Plus plans starting this June. It will begin with a phased regional rollout in select Asian markets, followed by North America, Europe, and the rest of the world. It also plans to have most PlayStation Network regions up and running with these new plans by the end of the first half of 2022. So, likely by the end of June or July.
Update: June 13, 2022
The new PlayStation Plus plans, which include Essential, Extra, and Premium, are now live in North America and South America. They previously launched in Japan on June 2, and Asia on May 23. They’ll also be launching in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe on June 23.
PS5 owners get the PlayStation Plus Collection
If you have a PS5, you get another really cool benefit if you also subscribe to PlayStation Plus. The PlayStation Plus collection. Which is a larger collection of free games that you can claim. And install it if you have the space.
Inside the PS Plus collection, you get 20 free games. All of which are always with you once claimed. As with the monthly free games though, you need to have an active subscription to play these titles. And they are only available on PS5. With that being said, it might be a good idea to hold off on buying any of the games that are included until you get a PS5. If you don’t already have one that is, and if you haven’t already purchased the games.
There’s no reason to buy them if you’ll just be able to claim them for free.
Where can I access PlayStation Plus games?
You’ll generally need a PlayStation console to access games from the PlayStation Plus library. This includes anything you’ve already claimed or would claim in the future. PlayStation Plus is currently available on PS4 and PS4 Pro, and on PS5 as well as the new PS5 Slim (it’s not officially called the PS5 Slim). However, you can also access PlayStation Plus games on a compatible PC. There is a catch to this, but it is possible.
First, the important bit. You’ll need to be subscribed to the PlayStation Plus Premium tier if you want to play these games on PC. Games you play on PC will also be streamable only and not ones you can download. This leads us to the games you have access to. Essentially, any game in the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog will be available to stream. Sony says that “select” games from the Classics Catalog will also be available to stream. There are currently a lot of titles available across both catalogs. So you’ll have a large amount of titles to choose from.
Naturally, you will also need an internet connection to play these games since you will need to stream them to play them. As such, this isn’t a viable option for playing games where the internet isn’t available. Like on a plane or in extremely rural areas. Lastly, you will also need to download the PC PlayStation Plus app. Once installed, you will launch this anytime you want to play one of the games made available to Premium subscribers. You can also use both a DualShock 4 controller and a DualSense controller for games. Third-party PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 controllers should work as well.
How can I sign up?
Signing up for PlayStation Plus is relatively simple. You will need a PlayStation Network account first. So if you don’t already have one of those, either go to the PlayStation website or set up a PSN account through your PS4 or PS5 console.
Once you’ve got the PSN account set up, you simply need to pay for a PlayStation Plus subscription digital code, and then redeem that code through your PSN account. The subscription will automatically attach to your PSN account and then you’ll have all of the PlayStation Plus member benefits right away.