Sony has announced the next lineup of PS Plus Essential monthly games, and amazingly, it's done so without them leaking beforehand. August 2023's trio of treats have been revealed over on the PS Blog as usual, and here's what you're getting this time:
- PGA Tour 2K23 (PS5, PS4)
- Dreams (PS4)
- Death's Door (PS5, PS4)
The games will be redeemable via your PS Plus subscription starting from Tuesday next week (1st August), and will remain in place until 5th September. They'll be playable as long as your subscription is active. Our All PS Plus Games master list has all the information you'll need.
PGA Tour 2K23 is fairly self-explanatory — it's an officially licensed golf sim title from 2K Sports that released last year. While it isn't the latest PGA Tour game — that'd be EA Sports' more recent iteration — this is still a solid spin on the sport from the team that previously worked on The Golf Club.
Next up is Dreams, a PS4 exclusive we're shocked hasn't been on PS Plus Essential before. This is Media Molecule's hugely impressive creation game — you have access to a powerful set of tools that lets you make more or less whatever you can envision. But if you don't fancy that, you can simply play all of the thousands of bizarre and brilliant things already made by the community — and the studio itself. It's an amazingly innovative game that's long needed more players, so this is a perfect fit for Plus.
Finally we have Death's Door, a top-down action game from the creators of Titan Souls. Playing as a crow employed to retrieve lost souls, you venture out into the world of the living in search of them, and come up against surprisingly tricky combat, clever environmental puzzles, and memorable boss battles. It has a great aesthetic and rock solid gameplay, and is well worth playing if you're into your Zelda-likes or, whisper it, Souls-likes.
Are you happy with this upcoming slate of PS Plus Essential games? Tell us in the comments section below.
Comments 94
Kind of too late for dreams, they're probably add it to extra too this month.
Nice.
Death's Door is on my wishlist.
Dreams: it could be interesting.
Decent selection 👍👍👍👍
They decided to finally give out Dreams on Plus.......but they doing it right before killing it off? 😭
Just bought Death's Door 🙄took one for the team on that one lol
and just like my dreams
they fade and die
Golf. Nice. I'll be downloading that.
Got excited for a split second thinking the PGA tour game was the newer EA version rather than the 2K one
Still a good month though either way
I'll maybe play Death's Door but it's nuts that they're giving away Dreams now that it's dead when they should have done this at launch. Oh, and there's a golf game. Gotta stop with the sports games on Plus.
Kinda weak. especially after weak extra/premium july
There aren't enough creative people in the world myself included for Dreams to have worked. I still can't believe Sony let them go ahead with it. A cool idea but terrible from a business point of view.
@Kanji-Tatsumi
Still worth it, Death's Door is so damned good
Never heard of Death’s Door but it looks good. And, well…I can sell my copy of dreams I guess. Bit late with this to help the community and them not incorporating VR2 into it is a missed opportunity to keep things alive.
damn I just bought 2k23 a couple of months ago. oh well
Nice. I will don the headset for Dreams.
Looking forward to Deaths Door as well.
Good month, again.
@Itachi2099 It isn't being killed off! The game is going nowhere — Media Molecule is just stopping live service updates.
Well, that's a wash for me. Don't care about PGA and I already own Dreams and Death's Door.
As many others have said, giving out Dreams now seems odd.
Death's Door is a lot of fun though!
Death's Door is absolutely great though so a nice bonus for both of you who haven't played it yet
First time I can honestly say "Dang, I just bought PGA Tour 2K23".
Typical haha
That is so crazy that they’d wait until there’s no longer support for the game to do this. I bought it a few years back but didn’t really find anything compelling enough to keep me. The dev tools were pretty cool, but very unwieldy with a controller. I always wondered if it would be easier with the move controllers over traditional.
Dreams and deaths door is cool line up.im definitely downloading both games.ps plus is excellent.word up son
I knew I shouldn't have have bought Death's Door I told myself, I knew it would be on Plus I sneered. Oh well, it was money well spent as it's a great game. Enjoy!
I'm stoked for PGA Tour 2K23! The Golf Club games were okay and I love golf games in general, they lend themselves well to the medium.
Dreams? Why now? Why not when it came out. I don't get it.
What are people on about with Dreams? All they’ve announced is that they’re ending updates, every feature still works, doesn’t it? Another solid month.
Dream is a treasure trove that should be dived in. You can find so much cool art, music and games.
Awesome! I've been close to buying Death's Door more than a few times, and if my backlog wasn't so extensive, I would have 🤘
None of these are for me but in a weird sort of way I'm kinda glad. I can more reliably work on my backlog without thinking of more must play games to be playing which also includes many other PS Plus games too. Dreams would have been better on Plus well over a year ago and now it's not supported anymore from September onwards kinda puts me off it quite a bit
Death's Door is a fun time, highly recommended.
Kinda ironic seeing Dreams on here after it's pretty much done with updates from the devs.
Just bought the other golf game, EA's PGA tour a week or two ago, incredibly addictive golf fun, especially the challenges. I went on a full on Souls boss fight loop with the latest challenge from The Open at Royal Liverpool. I had 14 out of 15 stars and then could not for the life of me land the last two shots within ten feet for the final star (which sounds incredibly easy, but trust me, it ain't) despite the fact I sunk my first Hole in One on the second part of that specific challenge!?!?!? So I could do that, but not get both consecutive shots within ten with my career pro 🫣 but when I finally did, I earned myself a nice polo shirt 😂😂😂 insanity. But definitely fun.
Will try out the 2K version at some point, but I'm led to believe the EA game is the far superior choice, and I'd recommend it, for sure. They just need to add a few more playable pros into the game with one of the future updates, that'd be welcome.
Nothing for me thanks. Garbage selection IMHO, but after such an awesome month last month I wasn’t expecting anything too good either.
Bummer that we didn't get Lee Carvello's Putting Challenge. I'm going to unsub.
@commentlife well the game's been out for over three years. (Feb 2020)
Sony saw it wasn't worth their efforts and figured they will stop support for the title back in April.
I think the the good folks in the comments are just wondering why Sony didn't feel the need to offer this first party game sooner to see if it might be worth to stick around instead.
There have been complaints surrounding the samey-ness of sony's first party offering, this game is pretty far apart from the standard. Hence, I believe, some people are 'upset'.
Not exactly rocket science mate
Dreams…about bloody time! I can finally see what all the fuss is/was about. I’m not very creative though, so will only be “playing” other peoples’ creations.
Pretty weak month in all fairness. But diverse enough and gives a break from all the shooters.
I have platinumed Dreams years ago, it's a good 3-4 hours time waste. Not gonna bother with PGA as golf is not my cup of tea, I might try the door game tho
This feels like the first time in forever that a game I own, Dreams, is in PS+ Ess that it's kinda weird. Obviously we own games that have been in Extra and Premium but I'm not paying for those so it's basically irrelevant.
Not playing golf, may try the crow game but it's probably too difficult for me. I think I just keep paying $30-$40 a year for PS+ to play all the games we've received over the years, can't recall the last new one I was interested in. 🤷
I liked PGA 2k21 when it was released a few years ago for PS plus.
I would rather of had WWE or MLB 2k23 but what can you do?
Deaths Door for the win! Been wanting to play that. Dreams is a good addition as well.
I wonder if a golf game is fun to play. The other two I won’t even claim.
Stupid of Sony not to put dreams on Plus years ago.
Not my month - already got DD and not interested in the other games (although I do appreciate Dreams being excellent in what it does)
Woo hoo! I didn't buy PGA just last night. Finally.
Did Sony add Dreams and Death's Door in the same month as joke?
Wow, that's mean.
Like many on this thread, I bought Death's Door (in one of the many sales) and it's been sitting in my backlog. But happy to spend the money on Indies in general so not too upset. Maybe it's inclusion will spur me on to finally play it this month.
Snacks on a Train confirmed for PS Plus
Unlike Death's Door, PGA Tour 2K23 isn't on Switch [yet], but Dreams - the glorious analogue of Nintendo's Game Garage Builder from one of Sony's most Nintendoesque studios this side of the late Japan Studio (they're behind LBP and Tearaway, after all) arguably steals the month's spotlight. One of the best IGC offerings this year, that's for sure.
Dreams should of gotten the ps plus treatment way earlier and a ps5 update.
Now that’s a month I can get excited by. Tigerrrrrr uppercut 2023 and Dreams, lovely
Can you try the VR games out in Dreams on the VR2?
Been meaning to get Death’s door for quite a while now, so that great for me.
Always nice when PS plush hands out Indie games rather than outdated triple A fare.
Haven't played a golf game in ages! Same thing happened with MLB The Show on GP, and I didn't put it down for months. I really wanted to like Deaths Door, but it didn't click for me. Maybe try again.
Dreams should have been pre installed on consoles like astrobot and optionally embedded into the UI within a "create" category. Typical Sony, neglecting their own innovations and then wonder why it didn't find a following with the additude "but we did put an article on psblog".
worst month of the year IMO
Great selection this month. Dreams and Death's Door are must plays for sure and golf games are always really fun in game form so this is a really good month for Essential imo
@Member_the_game having paid for both, I’d actually be more excited by the fact it is 2K23 - it’s way more fun.
Death's door is good (I played it on gamepass last year), the rest is bad.
@commentlife people live to complain. That's all.
Nothing for me this month, but Death’s Door is really good for those who have not played it.
I almost bought Death’s Door when it was on sale. Glad I didn’t. Looking forward to checking it out. I tried Everybody’s Golf once and didn’t really like it - I wonder if I’ll like pga better
Nothing for me this month, but what a treat for those who didn't play Death's Door yet! It's a polished and delightful indie. I had fun from the first moment all the way to 100%.
Not a great month for me.... enjoy if you wanted these games though!
Nothing for me.
PGA, pass. Dreams, I maybe I check out some games especially Media Molecule ones.
Highly recommend Death's Door though. One of the rare examples of a beatiful looking indie not dissapointing.
After last month being one of the first months I've ever claimed all three, I will only be claiming PGA Tour 2K23 out of the possibility I may play it someday.
Honestly, nothing exciting though. Dreams doesn't interest me, but if it did, I would have had it a long time ago. Death's Door is another game is another game that's already been out for a long while, but while it is supposed to be really good, it doesn't interest me as I have no interest in playing and Souls-like games. Oh well I suppose.
Deaths door was great, I want to play that again, I bought 2K23 about a month ago on sale, so… d’oh. Perfectly good golf game (I thought of @northern_munkey when one of the announcers said “Be the club” 😄) . Us old fella’s will get that
Nothing for me (I've had Dreams since launch, and haven't touched it in a year or two). Disappointing, but I'll still have a couple of titles to finish up before Baldur's Gate 3 takes over everything anyway.
I will play all 3. Hopefully one will tide me over until bg3
Dreams desperately needs to be ported to PC. I couldn't care less about golf games (that aren't Hot Shots Golf), but Death's Door seems pretty interesting. Overall, it's another good month for PS Plus.
@KilloWertz I always claim all 3. There's no point not to.
Great list. Don’t sleep on Deaths Door one of the best games in years.
Dreams… finally. Seems a little late frankly.
PGA Golf, I’ve had a blast with the demo on Game Pass was thinking of buying, now I don’t have to. (Edit: I missed it’s the 2K one not the EA one, will give it a try and compare)
Big win
Neat, I'd always wanted to try Dreams but knew I likely wouldn't get enough out of it to buy it.
Death's Door is awesome. One of my favorite games of the last couple years.
after reading all the hype around deaths door i'm pretty excited , and i love messing around with the sports game , so something else to play. i've already played dreams , i think people who haven't played it will enjoy it.
At this rate they'll announce a big pile of vomit as the new game instead of knack 2.
@theSpectre And I see no point in claiming a game you know for a fact you will never play, essentially having a ton of games in your library you know you will never play. Not criticizing. We just do things differently.
You love Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy XVI, so you can't be all bad.
@DrVenture69 lol. Pga 2k23 is a really good game and getting it in your sub is even better. I hope everybody enjoys it as much as i did.
@KilloWertz I do the same - it's really a "just in case" thing. I never play spots games but a few years ago I went through a weird phase of playing FIFA and UFC3. Only kept it up for a few weeks. Then also there's a chance someone will be around and want to play one of the games. I don't tend to play platformers, especially more kiddy ones, but my nephew really liked that Sackboy game.
Dreams will be a great pick up for those prepared to put the time into it...still makes me wish there'd been a port of LBP 1 or 2,as there'd been some lovely user made content for them or LBP Karting!
Had Death's Door as a wishlisted item,so nice to see a single player indie title show up,much like Rogue's Legacy or Broforce were!
I'd like to indulge a try of 2k golf,though like most modern sports titles they seem so full of live service mtx bloatware that i don't fancy the download size or space needed!🤯😅
This month selection is weak.
Dreams really is at Deaths Door bum tish Dreams should have been given away right at its launch, it might've stood more of a chance, so giving it away while its just about to have servers chopped is an odd move.
Looking forward to trying PGA though, the PGA games used to be the game that me, my brother and parents would all play on a weekend back in the PS2 days.
Just had a heart attack - I thought the golf game was the EA PGA tour which I'd just bought in the sale for £35. Fortunately its the one I was less interested in playing, so not too bad.
I played Deaths Door on Game Pass and can highly recommend it.
I'm also really happy to see Dreams, I always feel a pang of regret that I didnt buy it, I like to support creative developers and you don't get more creative than dreams. At least now I can try some of the fantastic community created content....
Its a strong month when you consider the competition...
Death's Door is one I've been curious about but I've been burned by enough overly difficult indie games there was no way I was going to buy it. This is what ps plus is for.
Definitely recommend Deaths Door, what a great little game, not easy, some of the bosses are quite tough, but a real gem of a game
It's a shame that MM are often overlooked solely on account of how niche their games are. Dreams would've absolutely slayed on PC, with an extensive modding community and a suite of FOSS tools.
@Mythologue I don't think LBP could've really been described as niche? At the end of the day it was a charming platformer with loads of do-it-yourself level building tools. Tearaway seemed like a bit of a backward step to me.
Since LBP 3 launched on PS3/PS4 (handled by Sumo but with input from MM) we've not heard a peep from them as they've been happily stuck in PS4 land, messing about in Dreams.
Be interesting to see what they come up with next now that they've been ordered to get back to work on something else.
@Matroska What is it with Final Fantasy fans and claiming all the games?
Joking aside, like I said before, I just do things differently in this case. I'm the only one that uses my PS5 as well. No right or wrong here.
@johncalmc it could be worse, it could've been an EA garbage fifa game
Dreams is way to hard to control and too steep a learning curve controls-wise. I bought it week one and after a couple of weeks ditched it. So much potential, such a frustrating control method.
@KilloWertz It's more like they're offered so might as well take them. Though, true, I'll probably never play PGA Tour 2K23 or Battlefield 2042 (which was offered a few months ago).
I love pretty much every Final Fantasy game, even if its a tough love like with Final Fantasy XV.
@Titntin That happens sometimes though. Last month was a great month, but didn't actually do much for me as I'd already bought Black Ops Cold War and Alan Wake Remastered, previously.
@theSpectre Bad luck mate! Often happens to me too, like buying titles on ps5 just before they arrive unexpectedly on game pass 🤣
@Titntin Doesn't bother me lol. I'd bought both of those games over the last 1-2 years.
Cool I'll give PGA a try.
@theSpectre That'a fair. To each their own obviously.
Final Fantasy is a series I neglected as a whole unfortunately. I've only ever actually finished Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Crisis Core Reunion, and sooner or later Final Fantasy XVI. I did play VII and X, but never finished either. I will try to go back and play as much as I can (minus probably 1-VI) eventually.
@KilloWertz I've been a Final Fantasy fan since the early days when I played Final Fantasy III (VI) on my SNES, but really got into it with VII on PS1. I recently finished VII Intergrade on PS5, XVI, Stranger of Paradise, and FF1 pixel remaster. Currently, I'm going through XIII (again) and FF 14 Stormblood.
@theSpectre Unfortunately I was a much different gamer back then. I wish I was more like I am now as some of the older games that I would have loved back then have aged extremely poorly. I stopped playing both VII and X back in the day because I got stuck and then just gave up. If that was today, I would just look up whatever on YouTube, but that wasn't an option back then.
I really do plan on going back and playing as many of the old ones from VII on as I can at some point. Not 14 since I'm not into MMOs, and I'd wait to play VII until Final Fantasy VII Remake's whole story is finished, but I'd love to play at least a lot of them over time.
@KilloWertz I'm not a multiplayer gamer in the slightest and yet, I love FF14. What's great about it is you can basically play it like a single player game.
I'm quite happy with these.
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