Huge PS Plus Clearout Confirmed for May, 25 Games Leaving

I was just getting into Final Fantasy! Almost done with FF7 Remake and had FF15 lined up. Oh well.

They really need to be keeping some of these on. Seems like a big hit to the platform. They’ll prob be off for a month and then they’ll make some kind of big event about adding all these final fantasy games to the platform.

@Robinsad Given Xbox made a big thing about having more Final Fantasy games come to Xbox, you can bet they'll turn up in a month or so on Game Pass.

Right then, time to finally get on with playing Final Fantasy VII so I can play Crisis Core so I can play Remake so I can play Rebirth.

@munkholt if you really want to play it why not buy it? It looks like you can get the Royal Edition for $14 right now, I think that's the game + all the DLC.

@AK4tywill same here, first time playing a FF game. I'm almost done with the OG FF7 and I'll be jumping into Crisis Core next then the remakes.

Yeah this is the disadvantage to a sub service. But honestly, I can’t really complain. Most of the time they cycle out games that are of lesser popularity and so the net result is usually that there’s more on the service to play than I have time for.

This time around, it’s not the Final Fantasy games that bother me (I’ve played them all except FFXV and they gave that out with that PS+ collection for early PS5 adopters, so I’ll still have access to it) but more so I’ve been meaning to play Artful Escape and Last Stop. @Widey85 Thanks for the recommendation, and I can probably find time to at least play one, if not both, of these before they leave.

Can't say I'm bothered about any of these but it seems a bit odd to remove all those FF games?

World of final fantasy was gonna be one of the 1st games I try as my 1st time ever using this sub. And it's already leaving lol. I was gonna buy it anyway eventually but what are the odds

Wow that's a lot. Definitely seem to have hit the point where we are losing more than we are adding.

I wouldn't worry about the Final Fantasy games leaving. Give it a few months and they'll reappear again, it used to happen a lot with certain franchises back when PS Now was a thing.

Ouch. Had hoped to do a FF marathon at some point.

That's brutal, but at least for me, not a huge loss. The games I'm playing aren't there yet, neither are the ones I plan to play in the near future. But, eyes open, always.

With recent news of Square x Xbox, this is interesting

@Th3solution The Artful Escape is a quite short game, you can finish it in 4 hours, even less. Even the platinum trophy is easy to get. And I recommend the game, it is amazing, great sound design!! Very good story too!!

Those Final Fantasy titles have been there for many years. If you still havent played them by now, then you should ask yourself if you actually want to play them.

That said, 25 games is a lot of games they removing though. Way more than get added in a single month.

Hmmm, am part way through a FFX playthrough (well, I stopped for a few months due to some Yakuza games and others, plus I’m at the stage where I have to capture a certain number of all the enemies and it’s bloody tedious). Things mildly annoying, especially as I already have it for the VITA but don’t think saves carry over for this version.

I would recommend that anyone who hasn’t plays World of Final Fantasy. Little gem of a game.

Wonder if SE will try their own Subscription?

If not as others have said, will probably go to GPU for a while. I can’t imagine them Now being played an awful lot

That’s a shame, some good games there. They really should be adding similar numbers to maintain the catalogue figures but they’d probably just make it PS1 Disney tie ins. Where are PS2 games? Remember when they pretended they’d be a thing?

Damn, a good few games I have downloaded on this list. Really hug downside to Extra, i love that I still have my Plus games on PS3 and Vita and will always have them as long as I am subbed. This is way less appealing, might just drop back to Essential going forward

Sony should just buy square enix they have a good relationship, keep all the ff's on its platform.

If you got FFXV Royal in the early PS+ Collection is it still going away or no?

I can't believe this. And here I was half through the 2nd disc of Final Fantasy VIII on my first model PlayStation + Sony Trinitron CRT setup.

Thats why i dont have psplus and extra.i do have psplus essential.which is excellent.too many games leaving but video games are cheap.so its all good.word up son

Not a big loss wrt FF. They've been on the service for nearly two years which is more than enough time for those who seriously wanted to play to play it. Also, most of those games are on every alternate sale at dirt cheap prices.
I played FF7 Remake when it came on Plus same for Artful Escape. They've been on there for a long time.

@pzadvance No. those are basically PS Plus essential games. You redeemed them, you keep them.

Would be interested in seeing some stats for these, because I imagine for the vast majority of those games, very little people are using them at all.

Not really concerned about any of these going tbh. Hopefully it'll make room for some more interesting games on the service.

The Artful Escape is a secret gem, I absolutely loved it! You can finish it in less than 4 hours.

I don't think that FF15 on PS Plus is the Royal Edition version. Could be wrong but it wasn't when I played it.

I finished The Artful Escape recently and didn’t really get the hype. Well I liked it enough to finish it I guess. I also finished ABZU last month and thought it was nice.
A couple of these are in my backlog. I particularly want to give Minit a go

Abzu and Last Stop are good games but no essential ones leaves the service.

Btw, seems kinda weird removing the FF games when we've just had an article where Square were bragging about how FF16 managed to introduce a whole new audience to the franchise. This seems like the best time to have all of these games available.

I was always about to try XV and never did.

@j2c I would, but there's no option to buy. When I log in, I can only download (because I already "own" it). But it will be discounted again, I'm sure.

@AK4tywill Don’t take my word for granted, but I was told that you shouldn’t play Crisis Core before completing 7 or the remake trilogy. It contains some big spoilers, they said.

As long as they give a decent heads up, like they are here imo, then I'm totally fine with it. Hope that May gets some sweet additions!

Doesnt hurt me. Bought and own all the FF games

@munkholt $14 to own XV outright now in the Spring Sale.

Thanks for announcing these departures each month. I always forget where to find the list of games leaving the service and when I do, it often hasn’t been updated since the last purge.

@Shepherd_Tallon oh no, I meant that it would be one of the first games I try, using this service for the 1st time. It's far from my 1st experience with this series 😆

@Shepherd_Tallon

I prefer to think of my subscription as a rental service , except instead of just renting one game I'm getting hundreds of them.

It gives me the opportunity to try lots of games I probably wouldn't look twice at under normal circumstances.

If I find something I really like that gets removed I can always buy it if I really want it. (The same as I would have had to do years ago when I took my rented game for the weekend back to Blockbuster)

@Darude84 Thanks for the heads up. I'd been recommended to play the original FFVII before Remake so that I better appreciate the changes, and I thought that would extend to Crisis Core as technically FFVII+Crisis Core are set in a different timeline than the Remake trilogy.

I guess what I mean is, can Crisis Core 'spoil' anything more than the original FFVII already would?

This sucks!!! There are so many good indie games in there that I wanted to try, but a month is not enough time.

Good games leaving, awful games being added, I went from premium to extra, soon to be on basic.

@Jswift56 Lmao, didn’t you read the drama last time Sony disclosed their financials? They are in no position to buy a publisher at all.

And there they were, unplayed, unwanted and now going. 😂

No great losses these for me, definitely not a fan of Final Fantasy despite trying over the years.

@munkholt Same here! FFXV Royal Edition is on sale in the store at the moment luckily.

Yeah, I think/hope the version of FFXV Royal I own is the one from the "PS Plus Collection" and afaik, if you redeemed those, you own them. But I guess I'll know for sure in a few weeks. I still have some DLC stuff to finish in that game.

Good thing I don’t like any of these games

@munkholt try going too the store on your PlayStation, I forgot that was still a thing.

The biggest issue I have with ps + is that there are more games leaving extra than actually join extra. The only games being added are classic titles which end up in the premium tier. Since the beginning of 2024 PS extra is loosing more titles than it's adding.

@AK4tywill I’d guess it would not. Back then I asked which order would be better, but the context was that I haven’t played the original VII, so everything in the remake trilogy was new to me. I’m no expert though, just saying what I was told.

@Darude84 Ah, gotcha. Yeah I've been unsure as to whether I should just skip the OG and go straight to Remake, but from what I see the people who rave the most about Remake are those who played the OG so I reckon it can't really spoil the experience.

I suppose knowing there are changes (I have a few guesses on what they are based on what I know of the original story) isn't ideal as I won't be that surprised that they deviated, but I guess that's just the nature of playing something a while after release.

@munkholt I just 100% the trophies on FFXV and started FF7R today hahaha

Let me know if you need any advice on XV, I know it got mixed reviews but I quite enjoyed my time with it.

Maybe they're planning to add the pixel remaster games ? , thankfully im already done with all those besides world of final fantasy and im about 60% done with ff8

Most of those Final fantasy games are currently on sale so if you really want to play them then just buy them.

I hate to say that objectively Game Pass is an infinitely better value than PS Plus, and it's not really close.

@munkholt click the 3 dots next to the download/stream buttons, that'll bring up the options to buy

Just buy the games. Most of these are dirt cheap.

Doesn't hurt me personally and I can't stand subscription services. If you want a game buy it.

Don't really care too much about final fantasy since I own most of the titles being removed but I only just started playing last stop.

@Czar_Khastik y’all got any more of that S-Video?

@tangyzesty sure, if you like Xbox first party games, if not, then it’s not worth it. I had 4 free months and I barely touched it, let alone their first party offerings. Not to mention games leave GamePass all the time.

Value is always subjective.

@munkholt If you have a PC can get it cash cheap for that platform for Steam

Though some of these have been on a while it's a bit stupid to take them all off with the time you have to put into them, at this point and if your into these game it's probably worth buying them so you don't have to worry about them leaving

@AK4tywill I tried the original twice since I'm a big fan of everything from FF X, but just couldn't get into the old mechanics and graphics. I kinda liked Remake, haven't played Rebirth yet.

@Yorozayu no, that's not it. It's that PS Plus Extra or Premium doesn't even have ONE game that interests me that I haven't played through or at least tried already somewhere else. I made a list of 6-7 within minutes on Game Pass, and all are available on PS5. PS Plus is mostly full of indie or AA stuff that I'm not interested in and would never play. And I love PlayStation but facts are facts.

@tangyzesty tell me you don’t know what subjective means without telling me you don’t know what subjective means.

I like these games leaving, a deadline gives a good motivation to push through and finish a game.
This month I'll be probably going for the Messenger platinum.

@Yorozayu I'm more of a SCART person myself, but hey, S-video is good enough

@Czar_Khastik I’m all about unnecessary cables that are obsolete in 2 years!

Great, now they have room for even more rubbish games no ones interested in

@Yorozayu So because I didn't directly reply to or reference you calling something subjective, you assume I don't know the meaning of the word? I didn't reply to it, because it wasn't RELEVANT, like most of your comments on here. I appreciate your concern, however I do know what subjective means. Most adults do. Did you learn it yesterday, is that why you're so fixated on that specific word?

I'm still playing FF16 and Rebirth so I guess I won't ever get to the other FF games.

@tangyzesty do you know what relevant means?

Yeppers. That's how game rentals go.

Doesn’t matter how many years those FF games have been on there. Those specific games defined PS in their day. Their deletion is like Xbox delisting some Halo games or Nintendo axing Mario games from the service.

The service dozers these games then provides shovelware. Sony has to decide if it cares about this service or not. Right now it seems like they are being cajoled into offering a subscription service at all.

Do you guys not understand that all you have to do is simply add the game to your library, then you can download it whenever you want?