Summary
- PS Plus Essential's January 2025 lineup includes the poorly-received Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
- The other two games, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, are a remaster and remake.
- PS Plus Essential's declining quality in game offerings suggests a push towards upgrading to Extra and Premium tiers.
January 2025's PS Plus Essential lineup is here, offering all subscribers to the service, no matter the tier, a small selection of PS4 and PS5 games. Every month, new games are added to PS Plus via its Essential tier, allowing subscribers to bypass the purchase process and simply download them. Unfortunately, the titles offered in this month's lineup reinforce a downward trend that PS Plus has been following for around the last year.
From early 2024 and for almost every passing month since then, the quality and nature of the games offered on PS Plus Essential have become increasingly worrisome. From the service adding games that are already either cheap or free to titles that haven't performed well at all, PS Plus Essential has been failing to live up to its name, and that is especially noticeable when the games offered in the Extra and Premium tiers have maintained a much more positive reputation. Now, January 2025 sees PS Plus Essential bringing another round of highly questionable additions to the service, although it largely has little to do with whether they are worth playing.
PS Plus Free Games for January 2025 Explained
January 2025's PS Plus games are Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered, and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.
January 2025 Is Proof That PS Plus Essential Is Not as Essential as It Once Was
January 2025's PS Plus Essential Headliner Was One of 2024's Worst-Reviewed Games
Headlining January 2025's PS Plus Essential lineup is none other than Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which just so happens to be one of 2024's worst-reviewed games. At first, Kill the Justice League looked promising, at least from a certain perspective. This was due in part, of course, to the developer's reputation with its Batman: Arkham games, but the concept of controlling anti-heroes like Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark to confront iconic members of the Justice League was highly intriguing, and it arguably still is. Sadly, the game was let down by its prioritization of live-service mechanics, which led to overly repetitive gameplay that lacked substance at its core.
Considering the fact that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is such a poorly-received game that has garnered so much criticism that it's a meme at this point, it's surprising that PS Plus Essential would consider adding it to the service. It could be a last-ditch effort to generate more interest in the game, but based on how its appearance in the PS Plus lineup for January has been received so far, that doesn't seem very likely to happen. However, negative reactions to Kill the Justice League being one of January's PS Plus Essential titles aside, the game's status in the industry is rather telling of where PS Plus is at and what/who it prioritizes.
January 2025's Other Two PS Plus Games Are a Remaster and a Remake
The other two titles available on PS Plus Essential for January, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, have a far better reputation than Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, but that still doesn't change what they are and the fact that they have taken up two out of the three available spots in this month's lineup. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is a remaster of the original game, which just so happens to be one of the greatest racing games of all time. Similarly, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a remake and pseudo-sequel to the original critically-acclaimed Stanley Parable. Despite the positive reception of both of these games, however, they are nonetheless a remaster and a remake, raising questions about their eligibility as PS Plus Essential offerings.
Headlining January 2025's PS Plus Essential lineup is none other than Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which just so happens to be one of 2024's worst-reviewed games.
The argument that PS Plus Essential is on a steep decline is not solely based on its lineup for January 2025. Rather, this month's PS Plus Essential games are simply further evidence of the service's increasingly disappointing additions over the last year, and perhaps even evidence of its efforts to encourage subscribers to upgrade to its Extra and Premium tiers, both of which have been featuring much better games as of late. Hopefully, for the sake of PS Plus Essential subscribers, this trend comes to an end very soon. Otherwise, they might just leave altogether.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 59 /100 Critics Rec: 20%
- Released
- February 2, 2024
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Rocksteady Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Warner Bros. Games
WHERE TO PLAY
Play as the Suicide Squad to take down the World’s Greatest DC Super Heroes, The Justice League. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, is a genre-defying, action-adventure third-person shooter from Rocksteady Studios, creators of the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham series.
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Suicide Squad
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- PC Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
- How Long To Beat
- 10 Hours
- OpenCritic Rating
- Weak
