On June 13, PS Plus will be merging with PS Now into a new three-tiered system consisting of PS Plus Essential, PS Plus Extras, and PS Plus Premium. The higher the tier, the more it costs. It remains to be seen how cost-effective these services prove to be, but they do show promise.
Not to mention, several players will be getting a few months, if not years’ worth, of PS Plus Premium cheap. When the service upgrades players automatically, those with PS Plus and PS Now will get the upgraded version—at the length of whichever subscription is longest. This resulted in a ton of fans stacking PS Plus subscriptions ahead of the launch, until Sony disabled it. It’s understandable on both ends: Sony doesn’t want to lose out on the money, and if someone can get access to a 700+ library of games for cheap, then more power to them.
Looking at the three tiers, though, it’s worth noting that Sony has included a contradictory promise. It remains to be seen how this comes about, but it says that PS Plus Essentials will have no changes…right after noting a serious change to the main tier—which is effectively PS Plus as it is right now.
PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium Give Players Hundreds of Games Day One…
First, it’s looking at what would exactly offset this change. PS Plus Essentials has been billed as PS Plus as it is right now, with the Extra and Premium tiers being the improved versions. PS Plus Extra includes all the benefits of the Essential tier, as well as a catalog of “up to 400” PS4 and PS5 games, including first- and third-party titles.
Confirmed titles, right now, include Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11, and Returnal. All of these can be downloaded. In other words, the PS Plus Collection is essentially being expanded in this tier (by quite a bit). A library of 400 games is nothing to scoff at.
But then PS Plus Premium dials that up a notch. This expands the aforementioned library with 340 PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3 games (though PS3 games are only available via the Cloud). The others can be accessed either via streaming or download. To even sweeten the deal, Sony will be offering time-limited game trials for customers on this tier, though specifics are still not exactly clear.
Regardless, many will be curious if these new tiers prove their worth—PS Plus Premium is $17.99/month after all. Part of that may depend on PS Plus Premiums’ library of games, which has yet to be confirmed.
But PS Plus Free Games for June 2022 Will Be Changed
Because of these new tiers, it makes sense Sony will be pushing subscribers to upgrade. It even stands to reason that more of the focus will shift toward Extra and Premium in the future. Overall, it’s a little hard to judge right now, but it would not be a stretch to say that PS Plus Essentials could become the Xbox Games with Gold to PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium’s Game Pass—if not exactly comparable there. On the other end, it would make sense for Sony to prove the value of the whole package by making sure PS Plus free games for June 2022 are top-notch.
Until Sony confirms these, it’s hard to know what its strategy is, but there is some contradicting information in its PS Plus Essentials description as seen below.
The very last line states that there are no changes for PS Plus members on this tier, but the first bullet point is a change: two monthly downloadable games. There have not been just two free PS Plus games given out in any month all year. In fact, the last month to simply give away two PS Plus games was October 2020.
Now, Sony used to have a PS Plus pattern of giving out two free games, but for more than the last year or so, it’s always been at least three—if not four. Sure, there’s absolutely no guarantee of these at any time, but fans have likely grown accustomed to the three and four, not just two every month. Perhaps there was some miswording, perhaps it means a minimum of two, but as it is written, it seems to suggest that PS Plus free games, via the Essential tier, will only be two games moving forward.
One could see this as trading one game for a library of hundreds, which is absolutely fair, but then a lot of that depends on the games. If the two PS Plus games provided are of the same quality as in recent months, then many will be unhappy; if they are of better quality, then perhaps it’s not a big deal after all. Either way, the PS Plus free games for June 2022 have a lot to prove.
PS Plus subscribers typically get a handful of free games every month.
Source: PlayStation Blog