Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

As PlayStation Plus turns 10, Sony offers three free games

Sony’s PlayStation Plus service turned 10 on Monday, June 29, and the company is offering up some freebies to celebrate.

Recommended Videos

Sony said on Monday that it will offer a commemorative PlayStation 4 theme and free online multiplayer on July 4 and 5 to celebrate the anniversary. Sony also announced that

NBA 2K 20

,

Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration

,
and Erica will be available for free between July 7 and August 3.

Each month, PlayStation Plus subscribers get two free games with their membership, but Sony will bump that to three next month as part of its 10-year celebration. PlayStation Plus subscribers can currently get Call of Duty: WWII and Star Wars Battlefront II for June at no charge.

Sony launched PlayStation Plus on June 29, 2010 to deliver online multiplayer and other perks to PlayStation 3 users. Since then, it has attracted more than 41.5 million users who pay $60 per year, $25 for three months, or $10 a month for access to free monthly games, 100GB of cloud storage, and online multiplayer. The service also comes with Share Play, which allows people to let friends remotely watch or play a game from the host’s library.

According to Sony, more than 1,000 games have been made available for free since PlayStation Plus started the monthly offers in June 2012. The 2007 Call of Duty: Modern WarfareSonic Forces, Shadow of the Colossus, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Destiny 2 are the five most-redeemed monthly freebies since the service’s launch.

Still, PlayStation Plus is significantly smaller than Microsoft’s Xbox Live subscription service. To compare, Microsoft said in April that it now has 90 million monthly active Xbox Live users and more than 10 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers who pay $10 a month for access to more than 100 Xbox and PC games, which is comparable to Sony’s PlayStation Now subscription.

Sony hasn’t discussed its future plans for PlayStation Plus, but it’s expected to live on in some form when the PlayStation 5 launches this holiday season as it did when the PlayStation 4 came out. In a PlayStation 5 event earlier this month, Sony promoted online play in GTA Online when it revealed Grand Theft Auto 5 would come to the new console. A title card accompanying the announcement read “PS Plus required to play,” suggesting the service will be required for online multiplayer on the PS5.

Don Reisinger
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Don Reisinger is a freelance technology, video game, and entertainment journalist. He has been writing about the world of…
The PlayStation 5 just got a discount in time for the holidays
A lit table holds a PS5 Pro, and a PS5 all digital, the former standing noticeably taller.

Play Has No Limits | PS5

PlayStation announced its big holiday deal on Tuesday, discounting the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition by $70 from now until December 24, 2024.

Read more
Sony commits to single-player games in wake of Concord failure
Astro Bot dresses up as Kratos.

Sony is not giving up on single-player games despite investing a lot into live-service games over the past few years, with plans to release at least one "major" single-player game every year "from next fiscal year onwards."

The company released its Q2 2024 financial report on Friday, and there was a lot of good news for the video game division despite the high-profile failure of live-service title Concord. Earlier this year. The hero shooter only wracked up a few hundred players on Steam at launch -- only 697 concurrent users at peak, according to SteamDB. Sony Interactive Entertainment took the game offline two weeks after launch before eventually sunsetting it and shutting down developer Firewalk Studios.

Read more
3 new PS Plus games to play this weekend (November 8-10)
Key art for Death Note Killer Within.

Earlier this week, November's batch of three new PlayStation Plus Essential titles dropped. Between now and December 2, PS Plus subscribers of all tiers can redeem these games for free. It's a good batch of titles, too. We not only have a brand new Death Note game launching onto the service, but also an enjoyable all-ages racing game and an exhilarating horror action title. If you're a PS Plus subscriber wondering what to play this weekend, any of these Essential monthly games can offer up a good time.
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Ghostwire: Tokyo - February 2022 Official Showcase | PS5

Ghostwire: Tokyo is the highest-profile PS Plus Essential game of the month. Tango Gameworks released this as a PS5 exclusive shortly after Microsoft acquired it. In the two-and-a-half years since its release, Tango brought Ghostwire: Tokyo to Xbox, released Hi-Fi Rush, got shut down by Microsoft, and was then revived by Krafton. That makes it fascinating to revisit Ghostwire: Tokyo now and see the last horror-infused swing the studio took before all of those wild things happened to it. Ghostwire: Tokyo is an entertaining supernatural action game where players fight Japanese demons with magic, and it's a worthy download for any PS Plus subscriber.

Read more