I have spoken out against PlayStation Plus on a dozen occasions at this point, but the time I haven’t been looking forward to has finally come, re-subscribing. I did it for Fall Guys mainly as it made logical sense. I wanted to play a game that was free on Plus, that you can’t play without Plus, and so in order to play it I would have to get Plus. Simple.
As it turns out, I ended up playing Fall Guys for two minutes before deciding I hated it and un-installing. You live and learn.
I was free of Plus for twelve months before re-subscribing at the last moment for the sake of Fall Guys, but that wasn’t my only reason for re-joining, and no, playing online didn’t factor at all into my thought process. The main drive behind joining was for the wealth of old PS Plus games I had saved to my library that I really wanted to play. Big name games like Bloodborne and Mafia 3 were right at the top of my list, but there were other titles such as Steep that I was just interested enough in playing if there was no cost to me, aside from the three month subscription fee.
I can now say I’ve at least attempted most of the games I wanted to, managing to spend a full hour on Bloodborne before deciding being killed over and over by the same horde of peasants just wasn’t my cup of tea. Mafia 3 will be the next game I start, after polishing off my second run of the Assassin’s Creed: Origins expansions.
You may argue that all I have saved myself in my twelve month hiatus is the £50 charge for a year subscription but the saving goes much deeper than that. Every Plus game in that year didn’t interest me in the slightest, and so would have been a bad investment of £50 had I chosen to pay that. It also saved my blood pressure from all the times the announcement of the free Plus games instantly had my blood boiling at the audacity of making such truly boring or shit games free, and acting like players should be pleased with it. Gamer backlash at the Plus offerings has been more vocal and continuous this year, to my delight.
Look at the primary Plus ten year anniversary offering, Rise of the Tomb Raider, a five year old game that if anyone had wanted to play would have done so by that point. I saw an extra level of spite on display when you consider Rise of the Tomb Raider had spent its first year in stores as an Xbox One exclusive, which really shows that the team behind the selection of free games lack any degree of self-awareness.
I don’t intend to renew my PlayStation Plus time beyond my current three month dip back in to play some old games, but I must admit that the October Plus games (Vampyr and Need for Speed: Payback) are sufficient enough offerings that I am happy I have PlayStation Plus while they are free, even if I have played Payback on Xbox One already.
What are your thoughts on PlayStation Plus, in particular the free games from 2020? Let me know all your opinions and thought on this topic in the comments or on Twitter @RespawningUK and I will be back next week, so I will speak to you then.