PlayStation Plus Free 2026 GOTY Contender Met With Backlash

After PlayStation woke up and chose violence on July 1, anything it touched thereafter, including PlayStation Plus, was bound to suffer fans’ wrath at a moment’s notice. In fact, fans were patiently waiting for whenever PlayStation returned to Twitter/X so that it could ignore whatever it had to say and continue protesting the death of physical media.

It won’t be surprising at all if everything that’s PlayStation-related is critiqued, let alone boycotted, for the foreseeable future. That said, on a note that’s unrelated to physical media yet related to PlayStation, fans are weighing their thoughts on some of PS Plus’ common practices and how worthwhile the service is.

On Twitter/X, Housemarque shared that Saros now has a two-and-half-hour Game Trial available on PS Plus Premium. PS Plus Game Trials have been a thing for a long while, to be fair, but fans are debating the value and differences between a Game Trial and any ordinary, run-of-the-mill demo nowadays.

In particular, fans are unhappy that Game Trials are paywalled behind the Premium PS Plus tier. Even Reddit user Trbek, who is currently a PS Plus Premium subscriber, thinks that it is an egregious practice to lock Game Trials behind the most expensive tier: “Isn’t the point of a trial to have as many people as possible trying it out? I might live in a small bubble, but I don’t know a single person who would buy a subscription to get a limited taste.”

User Pork_Chompk doesn’t believe a single Game Trial could convince them to upgrade: “It’s just going to prevent me from trying games that I may have purchased if I liked the demo.” And, with some fans questioning why Game Trials are exclusive to PS Plus Premium, others agree that it’s meant to create an incentive for users to subscribe to that tier.

Fans are also taking this opportunity to debate why, aside from progression and saves being carried over to the full game, Game Trials aren’t all that unique anymore apart from demos. Many game demos are quite lengthy and packed with content, not to mention free.

Overall, demos are ideal for players who don’t want to commit to a PlayStation subscription and have no stake in the service, whereas Game Trials make the most sense for users who think they might eventually choose to purchase the game they’re playing a Game Trial of.

At that point, there’s an argument to be made that you’d be better off paying for the full game, as players might only get full value out of a Game Trial and the benefits it has over a trivial demo if they decide to buy the game and continue it thereafter. Either way, every gamer is allowed to choose for themselves why or why not they might subscribe to PS Plus and what the value of Game Trials is to them.