While the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 are excellent consoles, especially for those who don’t want to invest in a gaming PC, you tend to lose out on a lot if you don’t have one of Sony’s online subscriptions. You see, a PlayStation Plus (PS Plus) subscription offers, is access to online multiplayer, and without it, you can’t connect to online servers and play with other folks, which is a bit frustrating. Luckily, a PS Plus membership does offer some additional features, such as free games every month and access to some older PS games, all of which depend on which of the three tiers you subscribe to: Essential, Extra, and Premium.
What is PlayStation Plus?
Along with online multiplayer and other in-game network features, a PlayStation Plus Essential membership grants you access to exclusive discounts and other promotions. Perhaps the most notable benefit of PlayStation Plus is that every month, Sony gives subscribers one PlayStation 5 and two PlayStation 4 games that are free to download. You have one month to add these free PlayStation Plus games to your library.
After that, these titles are yours to keep so long as you have an active PlayStation Plus subscription. The free-to-download games are generally pretty good (they are often some of the best PS4 games that have been out for a little while), and these alone justify the cost of PS Plus even for people who don’t do a lot of online gaming.
If your membership lapses, you lose access to these games; however, you can download them again if you re-activate your PS Plus account. In other words, you don’t need to worry about losing your free games if you decide to go without PS Plus for a while (or if you just forget to add more time to your subscription) — once they are in your library, these free PlayStation Plus titles are yours to play whenever you have an active PS Plus membership. Just note that you may only add them to your library during the month that they are free.
If you want more from your PlayStation Plus membership, there’s also PlayStation Plus Extra. This service gives you all the benefits of PS Plus Essential as well as a downloadable catalog of nearly 400 PS4 and PS5 games.
Not enough for you? There’s always PlayStation Plus Premium which does all that, and adds on PS3 game streaming for select titles) along with some PS1, PS2 and PSP games too. It’s more limited than anyone would like but there are some good titles like Ape Escape, Tekken 2, and Dark Cloud.
In all cases, there’s also access to PS Plus Collection — a roundup of some of the best games seen on PS4 such as The Last of Us Remastered, God of War, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. This won’t be for long though with Sony discontinuing the library from May 9. Fortunately, if you download any of these games before then, they’re yours to keep unless your PS Plus subscription lapses. It’s a great way of gaining insight into what Sony has to offer but you’re going to need to be fast, making one of these PlayStation Plus deals even more unmissable right now.
PlayStation Plus Membership
PlayStation Plus Essential is the new name for what was previously known simply as PlayStation Plus. The main purpose of signing up for the service is to access the online modes of your favorite games, though there are added bonuses such as free games to download every month. You’ll be able to keep playing these games as long as your PlayStation Plus Essential membership remains active, or you decide to upgrade to the higher tiers — PlayStation Plus Extra and PlayStation Plus Premium.
Sadly, there aren’t any deals going for any of the subscriptions at the moment so you’ll have to grab a subscription directly from Sony.
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