In the age of gaming subscription services fighting for your hard-earned funds, one has to come out on top. While Game Pass certainly has an advantage with day-one releases and a large first-party catalogue, there are other options. If you own a PS4 or PS5, you might be tempted to dip your toes into the world of PlayStation Plus, but is this worthwhile? This is a multi-faceted question that I will explore from two very different perspectives.
New to PlayStation?
If you’re new to the PlayStation ecosystem, PlayStation Plus is a wonderful way to experience the best the console has to offer. Many of the legacy first-party titles from the PS4 generation are here and ready to play. Most of them hold up incredibly well and are visually on par with the modern AAA gaming scene. If you’re looking to play Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, Returnal, and The Last of Us, this is a no-brainer. The amount of money you’ll save from just playing the big shots of the catalogue far outweighs a digital purchase.
Aside from the modern first-party offerings, there are plenty of iconic games from across PlayStation’s history. If you’re nostalgic for Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank, you can find the entire franchises fully playable here. While I think the offerings could be better, it’s missing some key historical entries from now Activision-owned Crash and Spyro; what we have is serviceable. Plus, Mr Moskeeto is here. How random is that?
Third-party offerings are hit or miss, depending on player interest. There’s plenty of Ubisoft titles, Silent Hill 2, Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy, and indie darlings like Cult of the Lamb, Cat Quest and Celeste. In my opinion, it’s best to look at PS Plus as a supplementary service to your general gaming habits, and not a replacement. Buy your usual games and then take risks on some titles you wouldn’t normally play through the subscription, as I will discuss in the next section.
Existing PlayStation Player
However, what if you’ve been an avid PlayStation fan for years, built up a decent library and have played the big hitters? Is it even worth acknowledging the service then? Well, that would depend on your tastes, but in my opinion, it’s best to analyse the list of available games. If you can look through the library and spot a few games you know you want to play but haven’t purchased yet, take the plunge. For this article, I conducted an experiment that did just this, and I’d like to discuss it.
My Experiment
So, Black Friday 2024 came around, and PlayStation did their annual discount on PS Plus Extra. I looked through the catalogue and realised that the entire Life is Strange catalogue was available as part of the subscription. I intended to catch up on the series to play the latest entry at the time, Double Exposure, and worked out the costs of buying them against the subscription and deemed it worthwhile. To preface this, I am an annual subscriber of PS Plus Essential, meaning Extra or Premium is an upgrade to me.
Over the 12 months of my subscription, I played 13 games, but let’s surround this with even more context. I play on multiple gaming ecosystems: Nintendo, PC, legacy hardware like PS3, Vita and retro gaming. I also work full-time, write here as a hobby and do other adult life things. So, averaging a game a month from the service for my time investment in gaming is not a bad amount in my opinion. So what did I end up playing?
Notably, I played Stranger of Paradise and Tinykin last December, both of which made it into my top 10 games of 2024. Both games, I probably wouldn’t have played without them being on the subscription, with Tinykin opening the gates to me finding the Pikmin series. These are the types of games I mentioned earlier, risky fringe games that touch on what appeals to you but maybe not quite enough to make that purchase. As we continue, you’ll find a lot of that with my selections.
My Experiences
Next up, I played through every Life is Strange entry as well as Lost Records: Bloom and Rage. These are pretty breezy story-driven narrative adventure games, so easy to get through and great for short sessions. Similarly, I played Deliver Us The Moon and Mars, which are first-person exploration games in space. I had never heard of these titles and wanted something different, and they delivered. Eerily gripping yet easy-going sci-fi dramas with lots of intrigue.
From the retro catalogue, I replayed Sly 2 and the PSP entry of LEGO Star Wars II, just for fun. And finally, I played Sword of the Sea on release day, an excellent surfing indie delight, and Journey to the Savage Planet. This is notably the best example of my mantra thus far. Savage Planet is ridiculous, but the gameplay loop is incredibly fun. From trailers and reviews, it mildly interested me, but not quite enough. But one hour into the game, I was hooked and could not put it down. Without the subscription, I likely wouldn’t have ever played it, and now, well, damn, I want that sequel.
Conclusions
Ultimately, the decision to go down the route of a subscription model is monetarily driven. How you equate the joy you have playing games to their intrinsic cash value is subjective at best. I found the best way to really outline this point is their literal storefront value, so that’s what I did. My PS Plus Premium subscription was purchased for £84. I then took every game I played at their lowest digital sale price at the time I played them and added them up. Thanks, PSPrices.com, for documenting all that, by the way. It saved a lot of time.
So, what’s the damage? Well, if I had bought every game I played, it would have come to £161.59. Almost double what I spent on the subscription. Obviously, your mileage will vary, and the more AAA games you play, the bigger the amount, but I feel my subscription paid for itself. My general approach to these subscriptions is to play what I am interested in, and keep an eye on what’s leaving the subscription. I would not have played Tinykin, Savage Planet or Deliver Us the Moon otherwise.
I stand by the method of supplementing your usual gaming habits around a model like this, rather than replacing. Game Pass seems to be how the majority of Xbox gamers play games in modern times, so they often miss the gems between the subscriptions. I am, as always, physical media and ownership-driven and strive to buy games physically first. But the subscription model is a great way to experience new things, and to that end, I can applaud it. Just make sure to buy games from your favourite indie developers too, they deserve the love.
Video game completionist and 3D platformer connoisseur, Riley is a fan of the whimsical frenzy of bright and colourful characters that blessed us in the late 90's. Their favourite game's are Spyro, Persona 5 and Super Mario Sunshine.
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