PlayStation Plus is no stranger to criticisms when it comes to its monthly games lineup, but the past year has been particularly rough in terms of PlayStation 5 offerings and upgrade paths (or lack thereof). However, from a purely monetary standpoint, the service has proven to be a bargain for subscribers who received more than $1,400 worth of video games in 2021.
That’s according to folks over at Polygon, who went through the painstaking process of analyzing each month’s lineup to figure out what the offered games cost at retail (PlayStation Store prices at the time of publication) and what their average review scores are. PlayStation Plus doled out 40 games over the course of the year with an average Metacritic score of 73.8 and a retail total of $1,424.60. The games were $35.62 a piece on average with an average age of 1.4 years.
The oldest game offered was the 6.5-year-old Mortal Kombat X, which was part of the October lineup, followed by the 3.8-year-old PlayStation VR game Farpoint (March lineup). Not counting day-and-date launches of titles like Destruction AllStars and Hunter’s Arena: Legends, the newest games offered were Remnant: From the Ashes and Knockout City (0.5-years-old each). The best-reviewed game in any lineup was Final Fantasy VII Remake with a Metacritic score of 87. The worst-reviewed game was Tennis World Tour 2 with a Metacritic score of 56.
Overall, five of the games were published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and three of the games (all day-and-date launches) were console exclusives. After SIE, Electronic Arts was the publisher with most titles offered via PlayStation Plus, but all of EA’s games were available on EA Play prior to appearing on Sony’s subscription service.
Make sure to check out Polygon’s full report for even more numbers.
