The best games to play on PlayStation Plus Extra right now – WGB

PlayStation Plus Extra is a subscription service offered by Sony for $14.99/£10.99 a month. The biggest benefit that the Extra tier grants is access to the PlayStation Plus Extra Game Catalogue, a sizable collection of games that you can download and play at no extra cost. It’s an extensive and impressive list of titles spanning many different genres, publishers and developers, so I’m here to offer my suggestions as to what are the very best games you can download and play right now from the catalogue.

AC: Valhalla is an entertaining romp where you play as the Viking Eivor as he or she attempts to establish a new clan in England, while also getting involved with the ancient order of Assassins. You’ll fight, sneak and pillage your way across the land in this gigantic game. While it does take plenty of historical liberties, there’s a good chance that Valhalla will spark an interest in real-world history.

There’s plenty of variety in what Valhall offers, from its fiesty combat to its sneaky stabbing, from its raiding random towns in true Viking fashion to its extensive collection of sidequests. It’s like the all-you-can-eat buffet of videogames: it doesn’t excel at any one thing, but man, there’s a lot of different stuff to check out.

Batman: Arkham Knight

Rocksteady might not be doing too well these days, but once upon a time, they were masters of their craft, putting out the very best Batman games we’ve ever had. In some ways, I would argue that Arkham Knight is the worst of Rocksteady’s trilogy, but even the weakest of the three is still a fantastic time.

Arkham Knight pits Batman against a strange new foe while outfitting him with the Batmobile for the first time. The freeflow combat system is terrific and the thrill of haunting enemies from the shadows is like nothing else in gaming. It’s a cliche to say it, but Arkham Knight really does make you feel like Batman, or at least as close as you’ll ever get without a few billion in the bank account, a personal butler and a worrying fascination with hanging out on rooftops while dressed in BDSM gear.

Bloodborne

The level of devotion that Bloodborne’s fanbase has is simply unquestionable. Rumours have been flying for years that Bloodborne will get a remake or remaster but sadly nothing has appeared, so why not check out the original masterpiece?

Bloodborne is a PS4 classic that takes FromSoftware’s well-known love for kicking people in the balls and transports it into a Victorian/Lovecraftian world. Whereas many other FromSoftware games encourage you to play carefully, Bloodborne pushes you to be aggressive. There are no shields or heavy armour; if you take damage, you can heal up by quickly striking back.

The gothic world is dripping in atmosphere, every area offering a chance to tease out a little more of the story. The plot isn’t given to you: it has to be dragged from the game kicking and screaming. And kicking and screaming is exactly what you’ll be doing during every vicious boss fight.

If you love the idea of brutal, unforgiving gameplay and an incredibly immersive, bleak atmosphere then Bloodborne is for you.

Concrete Genie

Released in 2018 by PixelOpus, Concrete Genie was the studio’s second and final game. Sony sadly shut the studio down in 2023, leaving behind this unappreciated gem.

There’s more passion and creativity packed into the first 30 minutes of Concrete Genie than can be found in most triple-A titles. It’s part platformer, part artistic adventure where you control Ash as he explores a city, daubing the walls in beautiful art that you get to paint.

Somehow one of Ash’s drawings has come to life, and Ash himself gains possession of a paintbrush the size of a broadsword which he can use to paint the walls of his mostly abandoned home town. These paintings are made of pre-designed sketches that you’ll add to by recovering his lost sketchbook. These gorgeous creations are brought to life, moving on the walls they now live upon.

It’s a fascinating game that PixelOpus clearly put their combined heart and soul into, and it’s truly a shame that Concrete Genie was sent out to die by Sony which didn’t seem to care very much.

Control: Ultimate Edition

I’ve poured out my love of Control countless times over the years since it was released and I still stand by every worse. Control is Remedy Entertainment at its very best, a crazy supernatural action game that’s a joy to play and a wonderfully dark drug trip gone bad the rest of the time.

Playing as Jesse, you end up trapped in the Federal Bureau of Control, a group tasked with containing all of the supernatural elements in the world. Those supernatural elements range from the pleasingly creepy to the downright fucking insane, like a fridge that will go on a murderous rampage unless someone is watching it at all times. The building itself is seemingly alive, often changing and trapping you within its corridors and rooms, so Jesse needs to find out what’s going on and why she’s there.

The combat is a blast thanks to Jesse being armed with a cool transforming weapon and a heap of special powers like being able to levitate, the exploration is always super engaging because of the weirdness and the plot is a mad mixture of Stephen King, Twin Peaks and the X-Files.

Control is one of the most unique games I’ve ever played, a testament to Remedy’s ongoing journey to create games that are unlike anything else.

Cursed to Golf

Although I may be Scottish, I can think of no version of Hell more terrifying than one where I’m cursed to play golf forever. Turn that premise into a videogame though, and you have my attention.

Cursed to Golf is a fantastic little roguelike game where our heroic golfer is killed by lightning on the final hole of a tournament and cast down to Golf Purgatory where he meets The Scotsman, a massive ghost/spirit who explains that to escape you must beat an eighteen-hole course. Fail, and you get sent back to the beginning.

Stitched together from 70 different pieces of terrain, the courses you face are littered with all manner of supernatural bollox designed to keep you from escaping. Special cards grand you a little taste of those powers, including being able to make the ball do a U-turn in mid-air and even magical portals.

The resulting mixture is fantastic and endlessly satisfying to play, especially when you get really handy with the abilities and start wrecking courses. If golf in real life was this exciting, I might actually play it.

Days Gone

What list could possibly be complete without hordes of zombies barreling across the landscape toward you and what little brains you have rattling around in that pretty little skull of yours? Days Gone is a first-party PlayStation title that didn’t get the success that Bend Studio and Sony were obviously hoping for, meaning a sequel has already been ruled out. That’s a shame because Days Gone is actually a really solid, fun game with a couple of great ideas.

The biggest and the greatest of those ideas is that you play as Deacon St. John, a member of a biker gang who gets around the zombie (I’m sorry, Freakers) infested world on his trusty, customisable motorcycle. That alone appeals to me, although I’d be the first to admit that a well-armoured car would probably be the safer choice. Common sense isn’t going to stop me from loving the idea of barreling around the game’s setting of Oregon.

Aside from that, Days Gone ticks a few basic boxes: it’s an open-world adventure with some very light survival elements, backed up by a pretty enjoyable storyline that sees Deacon trying to locate his long-lost wife who escaped at the beginning of the Freaker invasion. Much like Deacon himself, Days Gone has a rough charm that won’t work on everyone, but for that it does, you’re gonna enjoy hanging out, having a beer, talking bikes and shooting zombies.

Dave the Diver

Like a delicious piece of nigiri, Dave the Diver takes two simple ingredients and puts them together to form a mouth-watering, soul-pleasing experience. Okay, I admit that analogy is some basic shit, especially since Nigiri has more than two ingredients, but you get the idea.

Dave the Diver features two distinctive gameplay elements: the first has you diving into a magical lagoon in search for tasty fish that you’ll then serve in a sushi restaurant in the evening. As you venture into the deep waters you’ll encounter a variety of weird and wonderful things, from new types of delicious deep-sea animals to relics of an ancient civilization.

During the evenings you design a menu based on what you’ve caught and then run back and forth serving customers their food and drinks, all while bringing in money to help expand your operation.

The intertwining of both the exploration and the restaurant management are expertly handled, creating a cohesive experience brimming with charisma. It’s impossible not to smile while playing Dave the Diver.

Dead Cells

Death is just the beginning. As a prime example of the roguelike genre, Dead Cells takes that old adage to heart. Failing is not only expected, it’s built into the core gameplay because death sends you back to the beginning armed with resources to spend on upgrades that will help you get even further on the next run.

Skill plays a huge role in Dead Cells. It’s a demanding game for people seeking a challenge. Putting in the time to master its slick platforming and satisfying combat is a rewarding journey, yet no matter the skill level everyone can get through the game thanks to the slow trickle of upgrades.

Death Stranding

On paper Death Stranding sounds utterly stupid: you walk across a post-apocalyptic landscape as a glorified delivery man, carrying packages back and forth from location to location. And yet somehow, crazed genius Hideo Kojima turns this absurd premise into something special.

However, you do need a high tolerance for batshit insanity in order to play Death Stranding. It’s a game where you carry a baby with nebulous supernatural powers around in a tank strapped to your chest, a game where you spend an hour trekking across a snowy mountain and a game where Conan O’Brien is inexplicably in it.

The true brilliance lies in how it handles cooperation with other players. You never actually see another player, yet you will see their impact on the world. You can collect and spend resources to construct roads, ziplines, ladders and other things that make getting around the world far easier, and these items can appear in other player’s worlds as well. It’s hard to explain how much you will grow to appreciate the hard work of other people who took the time to build a road that halves your journey time, and you’ll find yourself building both for yourself and for the warmth of knowing that you’ve helped out other players too.

DOOM Eternal

The name DOOM is known even outside of the realm of videogames, so iconic is the first-person shooter franchise. While it wasn’t the first FPS, it was one of the most influential, and its 2016 resurrection at the hands of id Software was nothing short of astounding.

And then in 2019, id Software did it again with DOOM Eternal, a brutal shooter that took the already crunchy, meaty, weighty combat of the 2016 game and made it even faster, even meatier, even crunchier, even weightier and even more heavy fucking metal.

DOOM Eternal is not just a shooter, it’s an ode to violence written with thrashing guitars, booming shotguns and oceans of blood. Arguably, DOOM 2016 is more refined due to its more streamlined gameplay. On some days I’d say that DOOM 2016 is slightly better, and thankfully its part of PlayStation Plus Extra as well, but today I’m saying that the utter insanity of DOOM Eternal wins out. Play it. Revel in it. And then use the soundtrack whenever you go to the gym.

Ghost of Tsushima

Arriving at the tale end of the PlayStation 4 era, Ghost of Tsushima is a beautiful game that casts you as Jin Sakai, a Samurai caught up in the Mongol invasion of Tsushima in 1274. The brute force of the Mongols decimates the defenders, and Sakai is left for dead. Upon healing, he sets out to retake the island and repel the Mongol invaders. However, Jin realises that defeating the Mongols may mean having to abandon the rigid Samurai code he holds so dear.

Ghost of Tsushima is a gorgeous game and a love letter to both the real-world history of the Samurai and the many fantastic works of samurai fiction we’ve had over the years. The combat is excellent, the stealth gameplay is fun, there’s heaps to do and the story is a compelling journey that wraps up in a satisfying finale.

Highlights of this amazing game include the wind guiding you to the next objective, engaging in duels, bathing in hot springs, writing haikus, wiping out entire bases from the shadows and traversing some of the most beautiful, inspiring landscapes in all of gaming.

God of War

It would be impossible to write this list without including the 2018 soft reboot of one of Sony’s most iconic characters. The God of War had a hugely successful career back in the PS2 and PS3 era, but Sony Santa Monica found a way to revive Kratos in the modern era by emphasising a deeper story focusing on an older Kratos now trying to live a life of peace rather than one of violence. Having lost his wife, he is now an emotionally closed-off man trying to raise his son, all while still trying to deal with his past life as the Greek God of War. But the past has a nasty habit of coming back to bite everyone in the ass, and Kratos is no different.

God of War is a blockbuster game in every sense of the word. Sony spared no expense when it came to the development budget, including bringing in the stellar Christopher Judge to voice Kratos. From start to finish (the whole game is presented as one never-ending camera shot) God of War oozes an exceptional level of detail and polish.

It’s not like it’s lacking in the gameplay, either. While it does arguably lack some of the bat-shit bombastic battles of the original games, especially God of War 3, this reboot features chunky, satisfying combat, fun exploration and an emotionally charged story that manages to make the somewhat one-dimensional Kratos feel like a fully developed, fascinating character ripped straight out of a classic Greek tragedy.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

You get to fight giant robotic dinosaurs using a bow and arrow.

Okay, if you need more convincing then I’m honestly not sure what you’re looking for in life, but I’d advise starting with therapy and going from there.

Horizon is one of Sony’s newest franchises and it quickly rose to prominence thanks to its interesting take on the post-apocalyptic landscape so often seen. It’s a bright and colourful world where you play as Aloy, a young woman who gets caught up in an epic sci-fi adventure where she discovers what happened to the world and why humans now share the Earth with massive mechanical monsters.

The world you explore is massive, beautiful and packed with things to do. Aloy herself is something of a divisive character as some people find her endearing and others struggle to connect with her, but the gameplay overrides all that, offering really strong combat against some of the coolest enemies around.

Horizon: Forbidden West, the sequel, is also available on PlayStation Extra and it’s tempting to recommend it over the first game simply because it improves on the core gameplay in almost every way. But, the sequel takes the already quite heady mixture of sci-fi elements and triples down on it, so leaping head-first into the second game could be rather confusing.

Maneater

Let’s take a dive into something that doesn’t take itself seriously, shall we? This list has a lot of games on it that are quite dark in their subject matter or take themselves very seriously. Maneater is content to simply be a fun game and an often very simple one at that.

Here’s the selling point: you play as a shark. You eat everything, you get bigger, you evolve in crazy, you kill more stuff, you go on a rampage, maybe murder a beach-full of humans. That’s the game.

Maneater is a great time, sticking you into the fins of a young shark whose momma is murdered by the stars of a crazy reality TV show where the stars hunt down underwater predators. Since you’re a shark and can’t speak, you don’t exactly swear vengeance but the motive is pretty clear, so you head out with the goal of murdering everyone on the TV show until you get to the main target, and to do that you need to grow. Completing missions, collecting stuff and eating other ocean life/humans all feed into the progression system where you unlock cool mutations, like bone armour, and evolve into a MASSIVE unit of a shark.

Not only does the game feel great to play, it’s also genuinely funny, both in its hilarious gameplay (like flopping around on land) and its brilliant nature-documentary narrator. If you want something straightforward and that won’t take hundreds of hours to complete, then Maneater is a whale shark of a time.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

The first of a few Marvel-licensed games to make it onto this list, Guardians of the Galaxy earns its place thanks to its strong character dynamics. Much like its movie counterparts, it’s the interactions between the various members of the team that make the game shine, carefully balancing comedic bickering with strong writing. This is a crew of misfit morons that you grow to love and care for.

That isn’t to say the gameplay is terrible, though. While it’s not one of the strongest games on this list, the shooting and fighting are still fun, especially as jump between different team members to unleash tag-team moves. But really, it’s the superb story that carries the game, along with the excellent voice acting.

Unfortunately, Square Enix wasn’t impressed with the game’s sales numbers so it doesn’t look like a sequel is happening.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

This is tricky to recommend, not because it isn’t a great game (because it is) but rather because the first game, Marvel’s Spider-Man is not available on PS Plus Extra. For some reason, Sony removed it, leaving the sequel instead.

The good news is that provided you’ve got a passing familiarity with Spider-Man you shouldn’t have any trouble jumping straight into Miles Morales which acts as a sort massive expansion pack rather a full-fledged sequel. With that said, if you don’t know who Miles Morales is (unlikely given the popularity of the amazing Spider-verse movies) then you may be slightly puzzled by why Spider-Man is now black all of a sudden.

Acting as a follow-up to the first game and as the building blocks for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, this game sees young Miles Morales stepping up to the plate as the new Spider-Man and protégé of Peter Parker. Classic Spidey has had to leave town for a little, meaning for the first time Miles is on his own and having to deal with a new villain on the scene.

In gameplay terms, this is basically the first game, meaning it’s sublime. Swinging around New York is utterly glorious in its smoothness, its fun-factor and its style. Combine that with slick combat and an entertaining yarn that does a great job of building Miles as his own character and you’ve got a winner.

Moonlighter

From swinging around the streets of New York to running a cosy little shop. Moonlighter is a small game where you play as a shopkeeper in a fantasy world, procuring goods to sell to the public. Every day you open your store, stock the shelves, set prices and hopefully turn a profit.

The twist is how you get the items you sell. At night, you moonlight as an adventurer, heading off into a series of dungeons to slay monsters and acquire things to sell during the day. A lot of what you get can also be used to upgrade your own gear, so you need to carefully consider what to keep and what to put on the shop floor.

It’s a clever mix of dungeon-crawling and management game, wrapped up in a charming bow. Moonlighter is a great game to break up the onslaught of big-budget blockbusters.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

While the Ratchet & Clank series has a dedicated following, the franchise has never really regained the mainstream appeal it once ahead on the older generations of PlayStation hardware, leaving its future in doubt. But Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart proves that the series can still hang with the big boys, even if the sales numbers aren’t great.

While Rift Apart is technically a continuation of the series, it does a good job of being accessible to new players, too. It picks up a little later in our intrepid duo’s lives, reintroducing us to them in the middle of a celebration of their heroism. Their old nemesis crashes the party, however, sending Ratchet & Clank careening through a charming, funny tale.

A lot was made of this game’s usage of the PlayStation 5’s speedy storage leading up to launch, and while it wasn’t quite as groundbreaking as promised, there’s no denying that the way the game jumps between dimensions, levels and areas is spectacular and makes for some awesome moments.

The gunplay is top-notch, featuring an array of cool weaponry to shoot while you venture through drop-dead gorgeous environments and meet wonderfully quirky characters. I freaking adore this game, and think you will too.

Returnal

Returnal might be a big Sony first-party exclusive game, but in spirit it feels a lot more like an old-school arcade shooter where fast reactions are key. All sorts of attacks will blast toward you in mesmerising and pretty patterns, forcing you to duck and weave. It’s wrapped up on a roguelike structure where death sends you back to the start of the loop but with new resources and unlocks that will hopefully help you get further along on the next run.

Underpinning everything is an interesting sci-fi tale where our hero has crash-landed on a strange planet where the concept of time seems to be entirely optional. But that’s not all: this strange place is messing with her head, too. It’s a cool story, one that’s a little trippy in places and asks its players to keep up or get lost, which I appreciate.

With that said, Returnal is also a tough game that demands a lot of skill to get to the end, so make sure you’re willing to put in the time before starting it, or you risk wasting a few hours before bouncing off of it.

Shadow of the Colossus

Let’s take a jump back in time, shall we? First released in 2005, this new version of Shadow of Colossus updates the game for the PS4 era and lets a new generation of players experience one of the most revered games to ever exist.

Playing as Wander, your goal is to revive your beloved Mono which requires the completion of an ancient ritual. To do that, you need to hunt and kill 16 ancient colossi that roam the landscape. The creatures are so massive that you can’t simply fight them, though. Instead, tackling them is a mixture of puzzle solving and platforming, requiring you to scale the colossi in an effort to discover their weak point.

It’s hard to describe why Shadow of the Colossus is so beloved. There’s something magical in its lonely atmosphere and its story which deals with some surprisingly deep moral questions all while being told in a very minimalistic way.

To say more carries the risk of spoiling the game. Suffice it to say, Shadow of the Colossus is special.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Two samurai-themed games on one list? Madness! But they couldn’t be more different. Set in Japan around the Edo period, Shadow Tactics is a game where you control a squad of characters in real-time, trying to sneak and murder your way through the levels.

At its core, Shadow Tactics is a puzzle game, each new area pushing you to use that brain-box of yours. Each character has their own skills and abilities, and you can pause the action and line up a series of commands for them to perform before hitting the play button and watching your masterpiece of a plan be executed. Often, that means watching in horrified fascination as you realise you didn’t account for that one enemy dude over there who is now busy raising the alarm.

Succeeding in eliminating swathes of guards or sneaking through a highly guarded area triggers immense feelings of satisfaction and pride. If you like the sound of a game that rewards patience and planning, Shadow Tactics is for you.

Sniper Elite 5

The Sniper Elite franchise has managed to snipe its way into my heart over the years thanks to its fun gameplay which rewards you for just messing about with the hundreds of Nazi soldiers that you’ll inevitably gun down.

It’s easy to dismiss the game as nothing more than a vehicle for its special X-ray sniper shots where you follow the path of your bullet and then watch as it rips and tears through muscle, flesh and ballsacks in glorious slow-motion. And to be fair, those are a pretty big part of the game, clearly aimed at players like me who enjoy some over-the-top gore.

However, the rest of the game is heaps of fun. Large environments serve as your playground for pleasing long-range sniper action and close-up shenanigans. At times, it feels like a more constrained version of the Hitman series because of the various ways you can often employ to complete objectives, including sometimes being able to complete whole missions while barely firing a shot.

That’d be missing the point, though. Nailing a headshot from across the map while carefully timing your shot to coincide with a plane passing overhead is a joyous occasion, and I still find myself firing up Sniper Elite 5 from time to time just so I can mess around in its levels.

The Sniper Elite games have, in my mind, come to define what double-A gaming can be in a world where development costs are getting out of hand.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Sometimes you just need an old-school arcade beat ’em up, and TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge is exactly that and more. The fact that it’s dressed up in pure nostalgic excellence is the pepperoni on the pizza.

The 2D side-scrolling action is carefully calibrated satisfaction dressed up as my one favourite childhood shows. Playing it with friends is a blast, and the short levels are designed to be replayed in order to beat your old scores and unlock new stuff to mess around with. You can button-mash to victory, or you can work on mastering the mechanics.

Shredder’s Revenge is pure, joyous, old-school arcade fun with a few modern-day tweaks, and I can’t recommend it enough.

There’s nothing more that can be said about Skyrim that has not already been said in the 13 years since it first launched. It’s easy to make fun of how often it has been re-released over the years, yet the truth is, people keep buying it and playing it. Skyrim is a seminal RPG, a vast adventure beloved by millions of players across the globe. In fact, last we heard, Skyrim has sold around 70+ million copies.

It certainly has its rough edges. Bethesda is known for being a bit rough around the edges, and you can feel that in all 13 years of Skyrim’s age, but beneath that is a rich RPG set in a fantasy world riddled with quests and weirdness waiting to be explored.

If you’ve never played Skyrim, you owe it to yourself to try it and see why it has become such an icon of modern gaming.

Untitled Goose Game

So good they couldn’t name it once. Untitled Goose Game is arguably the oddest duck goose on this list, eschewing all the RPG mechanics and guns for a wholesome experience about a bird rampaging through a town.

The premise is simple enough: you’re a goose and by doing goose things (honking loudly, flapping your wings, grabbing stuff) you’ll terrorise a small town in order to slowly make your way toward your ultimate objective, even if you don’t know what that objective actually is. You’ll steal bras, scare the crap out of a little kid, break various items, cause bodily harm and generally be a dick.

The genius of the game is how it sinks you into the role of a goose, which is to say an arsehole with wings. It’s gloriously funny, absurdly charming, and even better when played in co-op.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Wolfenstein is another game with a deep history that was resurrected to become stronger than it was before, this time by Machine Games.

Playing as BJ Blazkowicz you shoot your way through an alternate timeline where those dastardly Nazi bastards managed to craft advanced tech that enabled them to win World War 2 and conquer most of the world.

While BJ Blazkowicz was nothing more than a gurning face in the original games, The New Order attempts and succeeds in making him an actual character with surprising depth, all while maintaining him as an ass-kicking machine.

None of that would mean much if it wasn’t fun to play, and thankfully that isn’t the case. The New Order is a fantastic shooter. The games feel amazing to play around with, the action is smooth and the set pieces are awesome. Wolfenstein: The New Order is an amazing reboot of the classic franchise, and its sequels are pretty damn good too. Well, except for The Young Blood, that was terrible.

Do you hate your life and wish it was far more stressful? Yes? Great! Then XCOM 2 is the game for you.

This deeply strategic game mixes base management with turn-based battles and isn’t afraid to punish you for every mistake and slip-up. You’ll recruit, name and upgrade the soldiers you control in these difficult fights, creating a surprising bond between you and them that will get turned into an emotional weapon whenever they die. Yes, characters can die permanently, all the upgrades and memories dying with them.

Back at base you have to choose what rooms to build, what new tech to improve and how to spend your limited resources. The choices here impact everything that happens as you try to fend off the alien invasion, an invasion that almost always feels inevitable as you’re always on the back foot, looking for every edge you can find.

XCOM 2 is a strategic masterpiece, although certainly not for people who don’t like the idea of missing a 96% chance to hit and getting massacred as a result.