Here Are January’s Excellent PlayStation Plus Essential Titles

December is almost over. 2022 is about to shuffle off this mortal coil. January 2023 looms large on the horizon and with it, another month of free PlayStation Plus games. This coming month’s free PS Plus Essential titles are quite good, though there’s one in particular that I’m excited for players to get their hands on. Let’s take a look.

PlayStation Plus is now a three-tier subscription service that consists of PS Plus Essential (which is what we all had previously), PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium. It’s basically a lot like Xbox Game Pass now. For the purposes of this post, we’re just looking at the Essential titles, as these release on the first Tuesday of each month, while the other two tiers receive new games roughly two weeks later.

PS Plus Essential January 2023 Titles

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

The headliner of this month’s free games is Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order from Respawn (Titanfall 2) and EA Games. The Star Wars action-RPG borrows deftly from Dark Souls, so if you’ve ever wanted to play a Souls-like with lightsabers, here’s your chance. I really enjoyed this game. It wasn’t perfect but it remains one of my favorite Star Wars projects since Disney bought up Lucasfilm. It makes sense this one is finally on PS Plus, too. Its sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which takes place five years after the first game, launches on March 17th.

Fallout 76

I wasn’t a fan of Fallout 76 when it came out, and there were myriad reasons for that, not the least of which was a total lack of actual content. But the game has been growing and changing and evolving over the years—as live-service games do—and is an altogether different beast than it was when it released in 2018 (which will soon be five years ago). It’s free, in any case, which is a great excuse to dive in for anyone who’s been on the fence. Explore the wastelands (now with NPCs!) and loot up, go on missions, play with friends . . . honestly, I wish they’d made an Elder Scrolls like this game, with co-op adventures, rather than an MMO. Oh well!

What’s really curious about this one is the fact that Bethesda is now owned by Microsoft, and you can get most Bethesda titles on Xbox Game Pass. I wasn’t expecting to see one on PS Plus! I wonder if this has anything to do with the Activision acquisition and Microsoft showing that they’re willing to play nice. Now just imagine seeing Horizon Forbidden West or God Of War on Xbox Game Pass. Ha! Never gonna happen.

Axiom Verge 2

I’ve only played the original Axiom Verge, a pretty crazy/trippy/challenging 2D side-scroller pixel-art game, but it was pretty awesome and now I can try out the sequel for free! Granted, from what I’ve read this is a pretty different game from the first, and a prequel, and not particularly long (which I’m okay with to be honest) so it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea . . . but again, it’s free. Give it a whirl.

And that, dear readers, is that. We’ll see what January’s PS Plus Essential and Premium titles are in a couple weeks. Happy New Years!