Over the years, PlayStation Plus has given away some of the greatest games to ever grace Sony’s platform. All it cost was to stay subscribed and check back for new offerings each month.

Many of these games are now available as part of Sony’s gaming catalogs in different PS Plus tiers. But before tiers and catalogs confused matters, here are the best monthly games PS Plus ever gave away.

PlayStation Plus

A PlayStation Plus subscription is essential if you want to play online, but it also nets you free games every month and access to an enormous catalog of older games, depending on your plan.

10

Rocket League

It may be a free-to-play phenomenon now, but Rocket League spent the first five years of its life as a retail-priced game. That said, it was offered for free to PS Plus subscribers upon release, which allowed for a huge surge of players and likely contributed to the game’s long-term success.

If you were able to grab the game for free at the time, you got to be a part of an enormous gaming title finding its footing, building in popularity, and taking the gaming world by storm. Rocket League looks simple—and its soccer-plus-rocket-powered-cars concept sounds ridiculous—but there’s enormous skill depth to be found and it’s great fun even if you just want a quick mess around.

It’s no wonder the game rocketed to success the way it did.

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9

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

Every Borderlands game has been offered as a free monthly game on PS Plus at one time or another. Borderlands was available for PS3 users in 2012 with Borderlands 2 given away in 2013. In July 2024, we got Borderlands 3 for PS4, and even Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands was up for grabs in 2017.

But I’ve picked out Borderlands: The Handsome Collection as my top choice. This package combines Borderlands 2 with Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel along with enhanced graphics and all the Borderlands 2 DLC.

Borderlands 3 may have finessed the gameplay over its predecessor, but Borderlands 2 is still my favorite game from the series to revisit thanks to its characters, quest storylines, and probably the nostalgia I have from playing it with friends at college.

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8

BioShock: The Collection

Much like the Borderlands series above, every BioShock game has been available as a free monthly game at some point for PS Plus subscribers, with PS3 gamers getting BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite in 2012 and 2014, respectively. But the top choice for this series is an easy one with BioShock: The Collection being offered as a free download in February 2020.

BioShock: The Collection combines all three games from the series—making this the only time the original BioShock has been offered as a free PS Plus download—along with various bits of add-on content and a director’s commentary for Infinite, the games are also all remastered in 1080p.

All together, that makes this the best way to play these iconic games. If you’ve never traveled undersea to Rapture or above the clouds to Columbia, you don’t know what you’re missing; these are must-play games.

7

Shadow of the Colossus

One of the greatest PS2 games was meticulously rebuilt for the PS4 in this remake of Shadow of the Colossus, which was offered to PS Plus subscribers in March 2020. It’s an epic yet melancholy story that sees you traversing sparse landscapes to take down mountain-sized colossi.

That may sound like an intense combat adventure, but the genius of this title is that it’s more of a quiet, somber puzzler. This game is unlike any others and deeply affected a generation of gamers.

If you’ve yet to try it and didn’t grab it for free in 2020, you can still play it as part of the PS Plus Extra game catalog.

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6

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Perhaps the greatest Final Fantasy game—and probably the best PS1 game—received a painstaking remake in 2020, with the release of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Just one year later, PS Plus subscribers could download as their free monthly game.

The remake isn’t just an enormous graphical overhaul, it takes a completely new approach to the gameplay and battle mechanics. Granted, this is only a partial remake, covering approximately a quarter of the full story, with Final Fantasy Rebirth taking the next steps and an upcoming third part completing the remake trilogy.

If you love the polygonal original game as much as I do, you might miss its charming graphical quirks and arguably superior storytelling, but this remake is still an impressive and enjoyable way to battle Shinra as Cloud and his ragtag allies.

Even if you missed the free giveaway in 2021, Final Fantasy VII Remake is currently available to play for PS Plus Extra subscribers.

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5

Bloodborne

Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls fans were thrilled when FromSoftware’s brilliant Bloodborne game was offered to PS Plus subscribers in March 2018. This gothic masterpiece stylishly transformed the Souls formula and finished it off with cool, Victorian style.

The game is chock-full of creepy ghouls, challenging boss fights, and cryptic lore—just as you’d expect from FromSoftware—and has become a fan favorite in the developer’s catalog. This made it feel like an incredible deal at the time to get it without paying a penny.

If you didn’t grab it then, you can still play it now with a PS Plus Extra subscription.

The fifth installment in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, transformed and refined the gameplay in enormous new ways, updating the franchise for a newer generation of consoles introducing open world freedom to the games. Its mission format makes the story feel a little less compelling, but the improvements in the gameplay more than make up for that loss.

Initially, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes was released to PS Plus subscribers in June 2015. This is a short precursor to the game itself, which was later offered as a free monthly game in October 2017. If you’re a fan of Hideo Kojima’s indulgent cutscenes, out-there characters, and intricate gameplay mechanics, this is a game you’d have been delighted to play for free in 2017.

3

The Last of Us Remastered

The Last of Us was probably the best game on the PS3, arriving just five months before the generation came. So with all the new horsepower of the PS4, it made sense to re-release The Last of Us with vastly improved graphics, giving us The Last of Us Remastered.

This remaster included all the multiplayer map packs from the original game along with the excellent Left Behind add-on content. Of course, the game was later remade completed for the PS5, with The Last of Us Part I, but the constant remakes and re-releases of this game just go to show how iconic it has become.

Even if you missed the 2019 giveaway of The Last of Us Remastered, it’s now an included game for all PS Plus Premium subscribers.

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2

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Uncharted, and its protagonist Nathan Drake, are some of the biggest properties in PlayStation’s gaming catalog these days. The Uncharted games struck an innovative and engrossing balance of cinematics, platforming, puzzles, and challenging shootouts. They owe a lot to the Tomb Raider franchise, but were so successful at reinventing the genre that the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot took a lot of notes from Uncharted.

The original trilogy is excellent and was available for PS Plus subscribers as Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection in January 2020. But just a few months later Sony capped it off by giving away the fourth—and arguably best—game in the series as well, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.

Uncharted 4 improved upon nearly every aspect of the previous games, taking huge advantage of the added horsepower of the PS4 for the first time in the series. The graphics are massively upgraded, the gameplay is further finessed, and the story might be the strongest we’ve seen from Uncharted.

If you didn’t grab the free download in 2020, though, you can play Uncharted 4 with a PS Plus Extra subscription instead.

1

God of War

The God of War franchise has been a staple on PlayStation consoles since the PS2 era, but it was the 2018 reboot that made it the enormous title it is today. Having swapped Greek mythology for Norse mythology, 2018’s God of War reinvigorated the series with impressive graphics, adrenalin-fuelled combat, and a powerful story.

2022’s follow-up, God of War Ragnarök, was another smash hit, bowling over critics and gamers alike with its continuation of Kratos and Atreus’s stories. Combined, the two games have become tent-pole titles for the PlayStation, making this a brilliant game to grab for free when PS Plus gave it away in June 2022.

If you still haven’t played it, you can enjoy God of War with a PS Plus Extra subscription now.

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With new games offered every month, there are tons of other worthwhile titles we haven’t been able to include on this list, and hopefully there will be tons more to top the chart in future months. If you want to grab them for your own library, you can do it with any PS Plus subscription.

You just need to stay subscribed and remember to keep checking the latest titles each month!