UPDATE 29/4/22: Several games that appear to be joining the upcoming PlayStation Plus Premium service have been found on Sony’s servers, in addition to the three originally found below.
Data for the all-time PS1 classic Worms Armageddon, as well as its follow-up Worms World Party, have also now both been seen (thanks, Gematsu).
As a reminder, PlayStation has yet to officially confirm the games that will join their Premium service when it launches on June 22 in Europe
ORIGINAL HISTORY 28/4/22: Sony’s renewed PlayStation Plus is not too far off now that the company is currently aiming for a launch on June 22 in Europe, but there are still questions about the service, especially regarding the library of games that will be made available to higher level subscribers . . But while Sony’s lips remain officially sealed, it looks like the first batch of retro games to reach the top-end Premium level has begun to leak to PSN.
PlayStation Plus’ new Premium layer gives subscribers access to around 340 extra games in addition to the library of 400 PS4 and PS5 titles included in the mid-level Extra Level, focusing on retro games from PlayStation 1, PS2, PS3 and PSP. Sony has not yet offered specifications for any of the libraries, but users on Reddit have discovered that new headlines for classic titles, complete with new thumbnails, are starting to appear in the PSN backend, pointing to the beginning of a rollout of PlayStation Plus’ retro games.
Granted, there are only three such titles to be found at present, all from publisher Bandai Namco – Tekken 2 and Mr. Teases for PlayStation 1 and Ridge Racer for PSP – but it suggests that the locks are slowly starting to open as publishers move to get their classic titles ready for the new PlayStation Plus launch.
Of course, with 340 classic games to be made available as part of PlayStation Plus Premium on June 22, there’s still a long way to go before we have a complete list (you will hopefully forgive me if I do not write a new one article for every little batch seen on PSN from now on – unless the Gregory Horror Show is in there, of course), and we still have no idea what will be included in the 400 PS4 and PS5 games beyond that confirmed Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11 and Returnal.
It would be fair to say that Sony’s approach to answering frequently asked questions about their new PlayStation Plus service has been sluggish at best so far – it has only just come to tell PlayStation Now customers what would happen to their existing subscriptions yesterday – but hopefully with a launch in June approaching, it will soon pick up speed.