A user by the name of billbil-kun over on the websiteDealabs revealed what they claim to be the upcoming monthly games for the now-labelledPlayStationPlus Essential service. The games, which you may claim and own at no additional cost, as long as you have an active PS Plus Essential account, are stated to be Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, and the yet-to-be-released Arcadegeddon. Though this is just an unconfirmed rumor at this point, this particular user, billbil-kun, has proven their salt by previously leaking the PS Plus monthly games on the same website, and being right on the money. With that in mind, these games are all but confirmed.
For those a bit out of the loop, PlayStation recently overhauled its subscription model. Instead of having one service that let you play online and got you some games every month, the same service now has three different tiers. You can learn more about thathere, butthe main thing to take away is that what is now called PS Plus Essential, is essentially the previous base PS Plus service.
Crash Bandicoot 4 is undoubtedly the showstopper here. It was the long-awaited sequel of a very iconic old-school franchise, and though it perhaps didn’t shake the world, like say something like Elden Ring, mostreviewed it favorably, praising its well-designed platforming and faithfulness to its predecessors. Man of Medan was the first of studio Supermassive’s Dark Pictures Anthology; a series of shorter story-driven horror games, which has grown to become the team’s staple. The Dark Pictures series has paled in comparison to the first game they made in this style; the fan-favorite Until Dawn. Man of Medan’s reception was mixed, but fans of horror games can at least get a night of cheesy fun out of it. The lesser-known of the bunch is Arcadegeddon, but it has the potential to be the biggest hit.
Another noteworthy aspect of this piece of news, is that Man of Medan is actually available in the second tier of the new PS Plus subscriptions; PS Plus Extra. This will undoubtedly cause some customers to feel disgruntled. If games they can play in the higher tiers become available to users in the lower tier, it’s like the service they’re paying for becomes less valuable, since fewer games are exclusive to it. We’ll have to see what the general reaction will be once the list gets fully confirmed, and everyone becomes aware of it.
