Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Essential Games for August 2025?

It's worth it just for Lies of P

DayZ and MHOJ2 are almost irrelevant this month, but Sony still pays for them (almost nothing, I hope). I‘d prefer to get only one game per month, but of a similar calibre as Lies of P.

Lies of P looks pretty good, but I wish they didn't lean so heavily into the lying angle.

I think the game would have been just as good if it had just been called "P" or even "Truth Telling P." I think that would have appealed to a much wider audience.

Lies of p definitely won this.a really good game. Word up son

Really good month due to Lies of P. DayZ and My Hero don't appeal but that's on me.

With the new difficulty options I'm going to give Lies of P a try. Good job I like the look of it as somehow playstation ignored my auto renewal off selection and charged me £119.99 for premium while I've been abroad

Lies of P makes the month for me. Finally a soulslike that I can play on easy. Played a couple of them and only finished dark souls 3.

@gipsojo Not really - because the story is based on Pinocchio and 'lying' is also a very human trait. It also plays into the Story and a vital part of the Game-play.

I 100%'ed Lies of P and played through it up to NG+4 and I'm still happy as can be with that addition.

Means I can just download it and won't have to pop it back in every time I crave for more puppet violence.

Lies of P has been on my list for some time so very happy with that

@Faultandfracture Depends on what the other months offer. Otherwise buying (and reselling) the game is cheaper.

Well I wouldn't mind trying out Lies of P for free.

Maybe lie of P. I’m just not a big Soulslike person. Stella Blade is more my lane.

It's good if you haven't played lies of p. Most fans of the genre have though, and getting games on your sub svc 2 years after release is meh for me.

For those of you that claim you can't compare Game Pass ultimate to PS plus essential and so the argument that this was a day when released on Game Pass is null, makes no sense. Which is the better VALUE? . That's the whole criticism here is that playStation when they divided their nonsense up into tiers, is just far too overpriced for what's on offer. which is 90% old games most fans of the platform have already played. I don't have an Xbox and bought it during release, but I sure has hell see the immense value GP is.

PS plus great if you are brand new to Playstation, and has value there, aside from that there is the occasional gem where there's a game you didn't want to pay for but we're interested in and of course that's awesome but when you have the competition releasing the same quality third party games day one for just a monthly sub equivalent to most people's coffee or beaar budget a week.
Lame

I already Platiniumed "Lies of P" (back in 2023) on gamepass. But I am very happy to see that it is free on PS+ for everyone.
Pretty touching story and lovely music... Especially "Quixotic" from Seo Jayeong absolutely unreal...

The only game I’ll be trying is Lies of P. I played Bloodborne for a couple of hours years ago and since then I’ve avoided all souls-like games. (Unless SW Jedi Fallen Order counts, but that wasn’t too hard.) I also avoid any games that promote themselves as brutally hard, hardcore, or punishing. I know my limitations.

I’ll try it on easy, though.

@BAMozzy @gipsojo
Also the mechanic is not so much lying as it is showing humanity (and is far less spurious than a lot of similar mechanics in FromSoft games).

There are lots of things you get points for that aren't lying, but are you showing your humanity; and a few occasions where lying would be the wrong choice for these 'humanity' points.

Plus, your humanity points only really govern what ending you get, and a secret weapon (which is not that good) - its really not difficult to gain enough points for the good ending.
If anyone is stuck, the Fextralife guide has a nice little table in it.

@Czar_Khastik what is your honest opinion here?

@Lowdefal see this is the kind of opinion I'm down with. Lies of p isn't your kind of game but you acknowledge its a good game rather than say its a load of crap like most people who haven't played it would..👍

@KundaliniRising333 the first time in a long time I can't agree with you. I sub to the middle tier and I think that for the price of 2 full price games a year I get an awful lot of value out of it. Granted I'm thinking of dropping to the essential sub but that's only because I'm only really playing racing games for the foreseeable and there are no racing games that I can use my t598 on. I understand that for you personally it dosnt represent value but for many it does.

A proper all or nothing month.

If you own or have played lies of P already it's awful, probably the worst month of the year. if you haven't played lies of P, that alone makes it a strong month.

@KundaliniRising333

The people in charge have regularly said they see PS+ as a service predominately for older, back catalogue titles. If you're subscribing to it, you're doing so accepting this is the case and shouldn't be expecting anything different.

You say most people have played it already, thats simply not true, it sold a few million units on a 100m+ install base with about 50m ps+ subs, thats a small fraction of the player base, and that will apply to the vast majority of titles that come to the service.

If you dont think theres value, you dont have to subscribe, only somebody that buys the vast majority of titles they're interested in on or around release could fail to find value in the service and if thats the case, why are you subscribing to it in the first place?

Alternatively, you can easily increase the value of the service yourself by simply not buying everything on release. it's fairly easy to predict a lot of games that will come to ps+ the question is simply when. Lies of P released day 1 into gamepass meaning they're up for subscription deals and so you can put it down as a safe bet to come to ps+ once the gamepass exclusivity window is done. I love souls games but i didnt buy it because I knew it would come to ps+ eventually and here I am looking forward to playing it and once again praising the immense value in ps+.

@KundaliniRising333 PS+ Essential is $9.99 a month and GP Ultimate is $19.99 a month. So not remotely the same. You have to use the Core conversion hack to get them comparable, but that is not the normal retail pricing. If everyone was using the Core hack I’d wager they wouldn’t be able to sustain the business model. It’s questionable as is with Microsoft propping it up.

I also am a big fan of the genre and haven’t played it yet and I’m sure there’s many others like me. It’s also selling used for nearly $50 at GameStop, a price indicating it’s still plenty desirable. I think you’re underestimating the number of people who will now be doing their first play through because of their sub.

@kcarnes9051 yah that's totally my bad I completely looked at obscure pricing for ultimate. Corrected it.

@Northern_munkey I've found value by just subbing for a few months(3 month option) if there's a few titles I actually want to play with the middle tier. I then kind of move those few titles to the front of my backlog / next to playlist and go from there.

I don't see value in just having an annual subscription of it because there have been quite a lot of s***** months even considering that recently it's been better let's not pretend like there's been a lot of poor offerings as well.

However I totally do agree that there can be a few games that you wanted to play but maybe didn't want to pay for or were waiting for steep sale. In that aspect the value kind of pays for the sub. Yet for me, some of those I probably would have never bought anyways. a few examples recently are robocop and another crab's treasure and Diablo, etc. However like in terms of a game like Lies of P there's no way I'm waiting 2 years. The game was incredible and I'm glad I paid full price for.

I just don't see value in the cost of a yearly sub of the service no matter the tier but I understand that im coming from a perspective of pretty hardcore gamer who plays pretty much everything that is considered great alongside a few gems needlessly slandered by by mainstream games media.

@Bluemoon2008 I was referring to most 'fans of the souls like genre. '

you'd be hard-pressed to find someone that's a souls like fan that has not picked that game up it's one of the best non fromsoft efforts out there to date.

Contemplated Lies of P a few times, but soulslike don't really click with me, but at least I'll now be able to play with "the P organ" for free.

In general though this is a firmly "blah" month.

I just played Lies Of P and that would’ve been the only game I’d have interest in out of the 3 but there’s no denying this is a solid month for PS+ Essential. 💪🏽😉👍🏽

Lies of P made this good, I'm very excited to play it!

Sure sure. With a game from ps3, ps4 old enough to play on ps5 yes sure. Day z is tooooo good anyway. But is old!%@@^#$$@$#
Hahahahaha

Nothing for me this month, maybe stream P to get a taste. A 2019 review of DayZ from play on a PS4 Pro received a 2/10 score because of extremely poor/ unplayable performance. Why then include it as s monthly essential game? Has it been fixed?

@KundaliniRising333 I love soulslikes, having hit the plat on 4 FromSoft games, both Niohs, Code Vein and more... but I deliberately didn't buy Lies Of P, purely because I knew it would eventually be a part of PS+
I've done the same for the Spiderman and Horizon games. I did the same for Diablo 3 and 4. I also know others who have Lies Of P on their wishlist, but didn't bother buying it because they had a backlog to work through, so they don't buy anything from their list on release, just in case it joins PS+, unless it's a multiplayer that we'll play together.

I wonder if DayZ has improved since the physical release (I don't count the beta stage). I might give it a go although obviously Lies Of Pi is the corker this month.

Lies of P = Crap selection ?
I have now concluded these people will never ever be happy, regardless of if you've already played or own Lies of P, calling this a crap selection is insanity!
It just isn't!

Don't care for any of those games but all the more power to those who do. Happy gaming.

I have Lies of P physical. Don't have Plus and clearly I have no reason to renew this month but if you do have Plus and you haven't played Lies of P, PLAY IT!

@4fold well Stellar Blade is a soulslike.....

@Danbottomburp It's a pale imitation of Bloodborne with some awful level design.

@gipsojo As others have said, it's the whole point of the Pinocchio story on which it's based.

Saying that, you can play it both ways - telling the truth each time or lying. You just get slightly different story paths and different endings.

If I hadn't played Lies of P before, I'd be happy with this month just for that as it's a fantastic game.
As it stands, I'm not interested in the other games so not the best month for me personally.

Bought Lies of P at last months sale. Enjoyed it. The rest of these games, no thanks

@James_42
Erm…no, it really isn’t. Nothing is lost on death, difficulty levels (and easy ones)…I mean, it has combat and bosses but that’s it. I don’t think that’s all that’s required to make something a souls like, but I guess there are no comprehensive definitions for these things.

@Lowdefal
This is a reasonable take. Those who say, it's a crap selection every month could take some notes. Not every game is going to be a brand new AAA game. We get tons of value for our ~$7 month.

How hard is Lies of P? I'm not a souls guy but it looks very interesting. 🤔

Well this looks like a generic month. I am usually not interested but still respect some of the Indies offered because I actually pay attention to what they are, the AAA offerings are usually just 'it's around $30 or less or a desperate way to salvage it' and look so pathetic when offered.

Good games sure, but even those that are good or under the radar or anything else do stick out on PS+ I find more in a bad way then a good way as the good ones don't need PS+ and the niche will never go to PS+ anyway.

Sony wanting the anime crowd, why should they get PS+ for these. Even if why bother with My Hero here. Sigh. Pass, better offerings.

I don't know enough about the Death Note game months back even if the show was good in moments. But most mainstream shows the games are usually pretty eh. I also don't care for mainstream IPs, very very few I actually watched or cared about, the rest were easy skip worthy stuff.

Souls appealing audience that likely already has the game and DayZ.....

Yeah Sony is out of licenses or really shows the audiences they are targeting.

I have interest in none of these.

My favourite anime IPs are niche and don't fit what Sony cared about or not enough worth for PS+ anyway.

Lies of P may be good but either way, moving on most that wanted it have it or will get it if discounted, but otherwise for souls format fans go for it.

DayZ is probably fine I just don't know enough about it.

Either way all are pretty boring offerings.

Abig Knack 2less pile of crap.

I played the Lies of P demo and loved it but never ended up buying the game, so this works out for me, for once. I often buy games years before I get around to playing them, but I was waiting for the physical version to drop in price.

For anyone not aware, they added difficulty options recently with the highest level being the original difficulty.

I have so far put more than an hour into Lies of P. The story is interesting, the music is great, and the graphics are very pretty.

BUT I HATE THE COMBAT! I'm giving it a try because this is my daughter's current obsession game. She loves it so much. Me on the other hand, I can't enjoy souls-like combat, no matter how hard I try. Elden Ring? Paid 60 bucks for it and regret it. Dark Souls Remastered? Gorgeous and interesting, but I put it down after the first irritating, clunky-feeling fights.

I want to like these games. The closest to the souls-like formula that I have truly enjoyed are the Star Wars: Jedi games. They have a lot of the same mechanics, but the controls and character movement feels so much better.

@MrPeanutbutterz
It's massively popular and the reviews overwhelmingly positive, a top tier game and free on PS Plus
There's no negatives unless you're deliberately being negative

@Danbottomburp It's at 80 on Metacritic, so no, the reviews are not "overwhelmingly positive".

There's no negatives unless you put over 200 hours in to Bloodborne over a decade ago, which I did. Poor imitation is a poor imitation.

@MrPeanutbutterz
Oh my bad I had no idea Metacritic was the defacto review site, silly me thought there were literally loads of them
Even on the very website you mention the first 20 critic reviews all have it at a 90 or above
Go back to sleep yeah!