Best PS Plus Essential Games 2025

Having been a loyal subscriber to the ever-changing and growing library of PlayStation Plus alongside my best friend and gamesharing partner, it's easy for us to forget the various hits and misses from this controversial subscription service over the past few years.

And in 2025, as if it wasn't already a problem, we both saw a plethora of games to add to our lengthy backlog. And while the Extra tier is sometimes graceful with the library additions, the Essential tier is where most of the playerbase calls the shots for a win-or-loss month.

Which is why I've prepared a list today of the best PS Plus Essential Games of 2025. It includes the games that made it worthwhile to be a subscriber this year purely for their overall enjoyment value. But was this truly a solid year for the Essential tier? I'll let you be the judge here. Let's find out.

10 High On Life

Peak Edgelord Humor

To give us a fairly decent starting point, first up on the agenda is High on Life, from the February '25 lineup. The game's focal point is arguably its offbeat, absurd, and often hilarious writing, a trait clearly borrowed from Rick & Morty. And hey, it's hard to argue that the show's humor and writing are pretty subjective, no question there.

The gameplay is your typical first-person shooter, so it's pretty much just a serviceable part, nothing special. However, instead of using normal guns as you would on an everyday intergalactic escapade, you instead have sentient alien weapons, each with its own unique voice and personality that adds another layer of entertaining charm to the game.

The pacing is fine with some light-hearted exploration that can give you further bits of that fourth-wall-breaking comic relief should you need it, and with a short overall playtime, you can also try your luck at nabbing that Platinum Trophy as I did.

It isn't anything mechanically complex per se, but that's also what makes it such an accessible game for PS Plus subscribers—a turn-your-brain-off experience as you would to get a bit of comfort out of your week.

9 Neon White

Speed's The Name Here

Neon White may as well be that game that flew under your radar, not once but twice, perhaps. It's a first-person game that blends speed, precision, and platforming mastery into the mix. The core mechanics are your Soul Cards, your source of progression through the various gauntlet-like levels that test your parkour and quick-thinking intellect.

Each card can be used offensively and defensively, as well as providing abilities like double jump, dash, or explosive boosts. That quick-reflex dual usage turns every level into a sort of fast-paced movement puzzle combined with combat. And if you're one of those rare minorities that's looking for a beginner-friendly speedrunning game to teach you the essentials, Neon White's calling your name.

Supposing you get hooked on min-maxing your times, you can also check out the game's community, which is still pretty active in optimizing their time on levels to achieve that one "Ace" run for themselves. The cherry on top is a quirky story that may be cringeworthy or just nonsensical, but hey, it's nothing that detracts too much from the game's appealing aspect.

8 Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Jet Set Radio Lives On

You're truly a cultured individual if you've played the Dreamcast classic Jet Set Radio. But even more so, if you loved playing that, then Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is right up your alley since it's essentially a spiritual successor to that title.

While some of the mission design and objectives can be shallow, that doesn't deteriorate Cyberfunk from being an absolute delight of a time, especially if you play it in burst sessions. Grinding rails, doing tricks, boosting through the city, and spraying graffiti to build a reputation for your gang gives it a smoother flow and a more modernized progression than the arcade-like style of Jet Set Radio.

It also helps that the game has the same energetic, funky soundtrack as JSR, featuring tracks from various indie artists and the legendary Hideki Naganuma himself. It being available on the Essential tier of PS Plus also meant people could easily experience a unique indie title in a low-risk way without paying for the better Extra tier.

7 Stray

A Purr-fect Freebie

Initially launched as part of the Extra tier on PS Plus, Stray would later this year return as part of the Essential line-up for November '25. And as a huge cat person and someone who'd happily snag the Platinum Trophy during the launch week, you don't want to miss this game despite its one-dimensional gimmick, as one might come to think.

While the whole "Play as a Cat" gameplay could have had way more depth than it offers, there's still a fair bit of love to be found in its creative dystopian world design and environmental storytelling. It's a short, sweet, and cozy ride to the end for the most part, just aside from some sections that'll have you in frantic situations—a bit too much for the average feline to handle.

But hey, this feline's fate is in YOUR hands, and with the help of your trusty companion bot, B-12, you're bound to have a cathartic time with each other's company as you discover a way to help your little kitty cat escape the confines of Walled City-99 to head back to the sweet embrace of mother nature.

6 Viewfinder

All About Perspectives

Keeping the indie spotlight bandwagon going, another one that landed on the Essential PS Plus line-up this year was Viewfinder, a bite-sized puzzle-adventure title that's eerily reminiscent of Portal and has a core gameplay element that's similarly original in presentation.

The game has a fairly simple yet intriguing premise: you can use various Polaroid snaps and sketches in each level to serve as bridges, platforms, or pathways to the puzzle's solution. And later, you get to use a special camera yourself to figure out the best possible outcome for a puzzle's solution, giving you that joyful "aha!" moment you rarely get to experience in other titles when you get that perspective down.

And because it was in PS Plus' Essential catalog, it meant that players could jump into an otherwise overlooked game while only having to give roughly a few hours for the commitment.

5 Balatro

Your Worst Gaming Addiction

Hard to argue against a game's popularity, especially since it pretty much felt like gaming crack to everyone—and hey, that's a compliment to Balatro's brilliant gameplay loop, mind you.

To anyone who's not acquainted with the surging popularity, it can seem like a typical Poker card game on the surface. Still, even beyond that immense recognition, those roguelike deckbuilder mechanics make it ooze with fatal attraction on their own.

You form your usual hands, consisting of pairs, straights, flushes, as you'd normally do to earn chips in each round, but the key difference is that, instead of betting against other players, you fight to overcome blinds to successfully continue your runs.

And once you get the ball up and running, you won't ever realize how much time you've spent mastering the various Joker Cards or Decks you intermix between each round, all culminating into a game that has one of the highest replayability factors ever in 2025.

4 Jusant

A Lone Wanderer's Voyage

Continuing yet again that train of me gushing about indie darlings, a game that I consider well worth the shout-out for, and having been dropped as one of the PS Plus Essential titles for July is Jusant. This puzzle-platformer title creatively blends mountain-climbing gameplay as the main catalyst, with environmental storytelling as the underlying element.

You need to carefully scale a massive tower, each with its own sub-areas or biomes, at certain intervals and with increasingly higher challenges that make you actively manage your stamina during climbing. Even if you struggle a bit early on, you won't be alone since you'll also have your trusty and cutesy little companion, Ballast, to guide you a bit with tidbits of clues or new pathways along the way.

It is yet another PS Plus game this year that I highly encourage you to give a chance if you managed to claim it, even if the gameplay can take a bit to get used to, especially due to the overall playtime. The Platinum Trophy is also readily accessible to nab if you know what you're doing with the various collectibles here.

3 Psychonauts 2

The Cult Classic Platformer's Resurgence

Having played the original title for the PS2 just a few years back, I can confidently say you're missing out on one of the best modern action-platformers out there with Psychonauts 2, a title from the ingenious mind of Tim Schafer.

It was not only a sequel that expanded on the psychedelic and brainiac-esque level design of the first game, but also heavily doubled down on the narrative, both in the environmental presentation and writing department.

Raz's new adventures of diving into the psyche of people bring a wide array of bizarre and visually striking levels to explore and solve. And the writing never ceases to lay down its off-the-wall humor while seamlessly tackling complex ideas like self-doubt, anxiety, and human frailty in a clever, non-preachy way. This mix gives it both an emotional depth and an enjoyable one that most platformers rarely even attempt now.

2 Lies Of P

Just a Normal Day For Pinocchio

When Lies of P appeared as one of the free PS Plus Essential games in August 2025, it immediately stood out as a high-profile title compared to the other two in that month’s lineup, and most can actually attest to that pretty easily.

It is one of the best soulslikes on the market that (weirdly) can also be considered a spiritual successor to Bloodborne, or something very akin to it in quality. It reimagines the tale of Pinocchio in a dark, Belle-Époque world, where mechanical puppets roam and savagely tear the cityscape of Krat.

The combat is easily a highlight for many, as it interweaves a high-stakes, high-reward formula between guarding and parrying the target's attacks.

That, and the icing on the cake is an inventive weapon system that lets you mix and match between blade parts for a self-optimized playstyle. Furthermore, the recent updates to the game also brought difficulty options, solely for those who prefer a lighter touch on the challenging aspect, should they need it.

1 Alan Wake 2

Follow You Into The Dark

Surprisingly enough, during the spooky month this past October, we were blessed with possibly one of the best horror adventure titles for the Essential lineup: Alan Wake 2.

A long-awaited sequel to the beloved original from 2010, which saw us playing as Saga Anderson and Alan Wake in their intertwining storylines. And as someone who has a worryingly high amount of obsession with Sam Lake's Remedy Connected Universe, this was my personal GOTY contender in its release year.

Although having a pretty serviceable third-person gameplay on the surface, Alan Wake 2's defining traits are its dense and composed storytelling that demands the utmost attention from the player, but also equally rewards you with one of the finest pieces of writing out there in the video game media. It also helps that the survival horror elements aren't as hardcore as they seem at first glance, perfect for anyone who isn't a fan of the genre.

And for being an incredibly rich cinematic AAA title on its own, it doesn't hurt to give this a shot or possibly other titles or the ones before it, like Control, since it has the same DNA of an ambitious narrative structure from Remedy Entertainment.