PlayStation Plus: What is it and should I buy it?

Best answer: PlayStation Plus is Sony’s subscription service for all things PlayStation, and it’s available to purchase monthly or for an entire year. With it, you get access to online multiplayer, cloud storage, exclusive deals, and more.

Instant Game Collection

If you’re looking to expand your game library, a PlayStation Plus subscription is a great way to do it. As a Plus subscriber, you will have access to two free PS4 games every month and a free PS5 game. Once you have a game in your library, it will remain there as long as you have an active PS Plus subscription.

PlayStation Plus Collection

The PlayStation Plus Collection is a new benefit for PlayStation Plus members on PS5. This is another great way to expand your library because the Collection grants subscribers access to a library of PS4 titles for free. Only around 20 games are included in the PlayStation Plus Collection right now, but it is expected to expand over time.

From Worldwide Studios:

• Bloodborne
• Days Gone
• Detroit: Become Human
• God of War
• Infamous Second Son
• Ratchet and Clank
• The Last Guardian
• The Last of Us Remastered
• Until Dawn
• Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

From third-party publishers and developers:

• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Battlefield 1
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III – Zombies Chronicles Edition
• Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
• Fallout 4
• Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition
• Monster Hunter: World
• Mortal Kombat X
• Persona 5
• Resident Evil 7

Game Help

Game Help is another benefit for PS Plus members on PS5. This neat little feature allows subscribers to access game walkthroughs and tips with the press of a button. While not every game supports Game Help, a good number do, and you can expect most — if not all — PlayStation exclusives to utilize it going forward.

Share Play

Share Play is a generous offering from Sony that works on both PS4 and PS5. It’s essentially the modern-day digital equivalent of having a friend come over and sit on your couch to play a game with you. With Share Play, you can do a few things. First, you can broadcast your gameplay to a friend or share screenshots. That in and of itself isn’t entirely revolutionary. The coolest part is that you can invite a friend to take control of your game or join you in multiplayer even if they don’t own a copy of that particular game.

Online Multiplayer

If you’re looking to play online multiplayer games, then a PlayStation Plus subscription is pretty much your only option. Some games are free to play online even if you don’t have PS Plus, but if you’re looking to play the most popular top-tier titles, then you are going to need a Plus subscription to do it.

Exclusive discounts

In addition to all other benefits mentioned thus far, with a PlayStation Plus subscription, you will have exclusive access to some pretty deep discounts on PlayStation titles. I have seen some top games on sale for sometimes as much as 80% off. Plus members usually have the added benefit of receiving an extra 10% off games already discounted. Those kinds of savings have the potential to offset the cost of a PS Plus subscription in pretty short order.

The cost of a PlayStation Plus subscription can vary based on the method by which you buy it. For the most part, the best deal is to buy it a year at a time. A year of PS Plus is usually going to set you back $60. That may seem like a lot at first blush, but if you consider all the free games and savings, you will have access to it pretty much pays for itself.

Cloud game saving

One of the handy little perks of a PlayStation Plus subscription is the ability to save your games to the cloud. One way this can be of benefit is to save you some precious hard drive space. If you find storage limited on your system, then the ability to move some of your saves to the cloud can free up some space. Besides, you can access your saves from anywhere. That way, if you’re going to be playing on a different console, your precious saved games are always ready for you without the need to carry around a USB drive.

What’s even better is that what was once a measly 1GB of cloud storage — and then 10GB of cloud storage — was raised to a whopping 100GB for PS Plus members in 2019.

Try it out

If you would like to give PlayStation Plus a test drive, you can always try 14 days free to see if it’s right for you. However, I can say from experience that if you have the money, it’s worth every penny.

Great benefits

PlayStation Plus 12-month membership

$60 at Amazon
$60 at Best Buy

For online gamers and everyone in between

For $60 per year, PlayStation Plus is well worth the multitude of benefits that you get with it, the most important being access to online multiplayer and a couple of free games each month.