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The closest Sony is going to get to Game Pass (pic: Sony)

Sony has officially announced its much rumoured revamp of PS Plus and PS Now, which will include free games like Spider-Man and God Of War.

Given how many rumours there were, it would’ve been more surprising if Sony hadn’t announced their Game Pass equivalent this week – although despite assumptions that it would be unveiled in a new State of Play livestream everything was done via the PlayStation Blog.

As previously leaked, the revamp of PlayStation Plus will take the form of three tiers, the first of which is exactly the same to how it is now. The second and third tiers, though, including hundreds of games to download and, in some cases, stream.

Nobody expected Sony to offer first party games from day one, as Xbox does, but recent PlayStation 5 exclusives like Returnal and Spider-Man: Miles Morales are included, which bodes well for the future.

How much will PS Plus Premium cost in the UK?

The three tiers are called Essential, Extra, and Premium and you can see the prices and what they include below, which again are all largely as expected.

Sony PS Plus PlayStation Game Pass equivalents

PlayStation Plus Essential

£6.99 monthly/£19.99 quarterly/£49.99 yearly
Basically, exactly the same as PS Plus today and required to play any non-free-to-play title online. Also includes a minimum of two monthly downloadable games, cloud storage for saves, and online discounts.

PlayStation Plus Extra

£10.99 monthly/£31.99 quarterly/£83.99 yearly
Everything in Essential plus ‘up to 400 of the most enjoyable PS4 and PS5 games – including blockbuster hits from our PlayStation Studios catalogue and third party partner’. All are downloadable, rather than streaming.

PlayStation Plus Premium

£13.49 monthly/£39.99 quarterly/£99.99 yearly
Everything in the first two tiers plus 340 retro PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games, i.e. the PS Now service by any other name. The PlayStation 3 games seem to be streaming only, while the others are streaming or download. Also includes ‘time-limited game trials’ for ‘select’ games.

What games are included in PS Plus?

There are no examples yet, of exactly what retro games will be included but when the services launch in June the free games for the Extra and Premium tiers will include Death Stranding, God Of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11, and Returnal.

The services don’t have a specific start date yet, but will rollout in Asia first, followed by North America, Europe, and the rest of the world.

As a result of these changes PlayStation Now will no longer be available as a separate service, so you’ll either have to subscribe to the Premium tier or miss out entirely.

If you’re already a PlayStation Plus subscriber you’ll be automatically moved onto the Essential tier and PlayStation Now subscribers will be moved over to Premium, at no extra cost.

And that’s about all that’s known at the moment. The rather low-key announcement is something of a surprise but whether that means a State of Play livestream is still on its way is unclear, but the rumours do suggest that Sony has more than just this waiting to announce.

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