2026 is rapidly approaching like a cruise missile over the horizon, and with it comes an important reminder: PS4 games will no longer be included in the monthly PlayStation Plus Essential freebies.

Ok, before we go any further, let me dispel any fears: PS4 games are not being removed from PlayStation or anything insane like that. And there will still be PS4 titles in the game catalogue which is available on the more expensive PlayStation Plus Extra tier.

But what is happening is that beginning in January 2026, the “free” games that PlayStation gives out every month to everyone who has PlayStation Plus Essential will no longer have PS4 titles – it’ll be PS5 games only. So if you have a PS4 and have been subscribed to the lowest tier purely for the monthly games, it might be time to ditch it completely or even move up to the next tier.

In fairness to PlayStation, this change was actually announced at the beginning of 2025, giving us an entire year to get used to the idea.

‘As many of our players are currently playing on PS5 and have shifted toward redeeming and accessing PS5 titles from the Monthly Games and Game Catalog benefit, PlayStation Plus is also evolving with this trend and will focus on offering PS5 titles through the Monthly Games and Game Catalog benefit starting January 2026,” said Sony at the time.

Mind you, despite what Sony says, there’s actually a lot of people still on PS4. Back in May of 2024, for example, Sony’s own numbers showed that their monthly active consoles were evenly split between PS4 and PS5. Since then, Sony has stopped giving exact numbers, sadly. Their latest chart from June of this year shows 124m monthly users, and it appears that the PS4 still makes up roughly a third of them, so that’s around 40m.

So, why the change? It’s actually hard to say. With so many people on PS4, it’s clear that people are less inclined than ever to upgrade to the latest generation. But that’s also exactly why Sony is doing this: an attempt to push people onto PS5, although I highly doubt this would really drive anyone to the PS5 at this point.