REVIEW: New PS Plus arrives with advantages and promises for 2022

During the last few months, the Sony decided to join forces to bring more benefits to the owners of PlayStation platforms. What we previously knew in Brazil simply as PlayStation Plus and internationally as PlayStation Now — a service that never officially arrived here — now has other names, proposals and prices with the new PS Plus.

And isn't it that the company finally got it right with its recently launched subscription strategy? Today we will detail each of the new plans so that you feel free to choose which one best fits your pocket and taste profile!

PS Plus as we knew it

If you're like me and you've had all the branded consoles PlayStation, you certainly remember the time when the PlayStation 3 was a little behind in the dispute against the Xbox 360. An advantage of the platform Sony in the seventh generation of consoles that few remember, however, is that online games did not require subscription to services of any kind, while the Xbox 360 was always associated with the Xbox Live Gold.

A PlayStation Plus emerged in June 2010, therefore, as a way to offer exclusive discounts, extra content and especially games that could be redeemed monthly. The titles of various PlayStation family consoles made available over the years are still playable on accounts whose PlayStation Plus subscription is still active — regardless of the new categories that we will talk about in more detail in the text.

During the end of life of PlayStation 4 and the beginning of life PlayStation 5, the Japanese company was no longer paying as much attention to PS Plus as it once was. Subscription prices rose in Brazil and the selection of games (in quantity and quality, by the way) seemed less interesting in terms of cost-benefit. In addition, Sony needed a response to match the competition: the stark success of the Xbox Game Pass all around the world.

A new proposal, but not that new

The first category of the new PS Plus says it all in your name: Essential. It essentially — pardon the pun — the same service offering already known and implemented on PS4. An active subscription is required to connect to online matches — with free games exception , the Fortnite, Call of Duty: War zone ou Apex Legends — this being the main reason why people end up paying for the service these days.

The second advantage is the option to cloud save for PS4 and PS5 games, allowing automatic file synchronization to be enabled. If you, like me, like to pick up platinum trophies often, I'd say this feature is quite versatile and useful for enabling the infamous save cumming (upload your cloud save file with backup turned off, complete the challenge, and re-upload it to your console so your progress isn't lost via in-game autosave).

The PS Plus subscriber also guarantees access to the Share Play, functionality that can be used to share your game screen with friends, allow someone access to their own progress within a game or even enable a kind of “local co-op at a distance”. This last option is great if you like to share your screen with someone, but you can't be physically close to them.

Discounts and exclusive content have received a lot of attention on the PS4/PS5 website and virtual stores in recent years, but promotions do not always direct the spotlight of the “price” to those who subscribe to the service. In the end, I end up being much more interested in bargains offered to everyone than discounts focused only on those who have PS Plus active.

the resources Game Help e PS Plus Collection are exclusive to PS5. The first is available in the form of cards and hints for select games, but I never felt the need to use it beyond testing in the period I bought my next-gen console. The collection, in turn, is only welcome for those who do not want to move up to higher-value subscription categories.

Finally, we have the subject that most generates conflicts and joys on the internet when it is high: the games offered monthly. Since the launch of the PS5 in November 2020, the service has offered 3-4 titles every month — that's not even considering the versions cross-gen (between generations) offered to some of them. The new PS Plus, however, predicts from its promotional material that only 2 games will be offered by this format month by month. As we are still in the month of arrival of the new subscriptions, we have not yet been able to verify if the case is a step backwards in terms of advantages.

Strong attractions and confirmed absences

The second category, called Extra, has a large catalog of PS4 and PS5 games via installation. To be more precise, upon receiving access to the new subscriptions of PlayStation, I was curious to count how many unique titles are offered here: 365 in total, not counting versions of the same game for two different platforms. Yes, readers, there is a different game for each day of the year. And yes, it's humanly impossible to finish every game in just one year (since some of them are hundreds of hours long), but you can already get excited about what Sony is offering in terms of quantity and diversity.

There are a considerable portion of studio games third-party — including major Ubisoft franchises like Assassin's Creed e Far Cry —, many indie games from the last ten years and great productions from PlayStation Studios. The latter, however, do not include recent exclusive releases. Games like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, The Last Of Us Part II, Deathloop e Horizon forbidden west are not expected to be included in the near future. It's understandable that Sony doesn't want to cannibalize its own prestige products by adding them at launch to the Sony catalog. PS Plus Extra, but that only ends up being to her advantage.

The third and highest category available in the national territory is the Deluxe. Its first attraction is the option to test newer games not yet available in the general catalog. In the last week, I had the opportunity to test two games from a selection that currently includes 15 titles — among them Crusader kings iii, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands e WWE 2K22.

played OlliOlli World for an hour and I realized that when we left the game suspended while browsing the dashboard console, time is not counted. I also enjoyed a few hours of Cyberpunk 2077 loading an old PS5 save, progressing through the demo, and then going back to the physical copy I have of the game to see if the progress had loaded naturally. Everything ok and no problems. Points to PlayStation for the implementation!

The second and most coveted attraction of the more expensive plan is the retro game library — more specifically from PS1, PS2 and PSP. Some games from Sony's first console, such as Siphon Filter e Ape Escape, have a trophy system and PS4 and PS5 versions for those who like to get platinum trophies more than once. The performance of the classics is also satisfactory when we compare them to their original reproductions.

The weakest point is the number and diversity of these games: great names from the late 1990s, such as Medal of Honor, Metal Gear Solid e Silent Hill still do not have a date to reach the new PS Plus. In addition, we are still waiting for more information about the upcoming option to play PS3 via streaming as in the Premium plan in other countries.

Conclusion about the new PS Plus

It is inevitable to compare the new signatures of PS Plus with what has been offered for a few years by the Xbox Game Pass, but I believe that, for a first step, the Sony Didn't mess up the proposal. There is a lot to improve in terms of the classics catalog (especially via streaming) and there's also time for her to reconsider putting some of her releases on the service right away, but what's currently being offered is already too much for someone who was stagnant and unresponsive to the subscription era just a few months ago.

Prices, however, are the reason that most alienates those interested in subscriptions. If your account is American — as is the case with longtime fans of the brand — I'm sorry for your pocketbook when it comes to settling accounts in US dollars in cash. If your account is Brazilian (as is mine), there is always the possibility of splitting the costs many times on the credit card by purchasing cards in stores like Americans e Nuuvem. And I'll tell you: it's not a bad idea, at least this first time, to go all out with the option Deluxe to indulge in so many options!

See also other features

If you are looking for games that are not yet in the catalogs of the new PS Plus, check out our reviews of Chorus e Dune Spice Wars, two games little publicized, but quite competent within their genres.