26 June 2023 , 17:00
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The PS Plus July 2023 Essential games are being revealed on Wednesday, June 28, but what will this month's lineup entail? Here are our predictions.
Update: Sony has officially confirmed the PS Plus July 2023 Essential Games including Alan Wake Remastered
PS Plus Essential's free games for July 2023 are set to be revealed this week. While it's nigh impossible to know exactly what trio of titles will make up the Essential lineup until it's revealed by Sony (or leaked, as we've seen in recent months ) there are a few educated guesses we can make, either based on past years' lineups or by what's going on in other parts of the PlayStation store.
We've already predicted that one of this month's games might be from October 2021, since the PS Plus July 2022 headliner was Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time! which released in October 2020 so it makes sense to move things forward a year for the July 2023 lineup. Some games from that month that could be showing up include Alan Wake Remastered (which would make sense to get out before Alan Wake 2 launches later this year) and Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania.
One game I'm fully expecting to show up some time this year is Marvel's Spider-Man; the biggest PS5 exclusive launching this year is Marvel's Spider-Man 2, so it would make sense for the previous entry to be given to subscribers to get them ready for the sequel. PlayStation has previously done this with Horizon Zero Dawn being given out for free in April 2021 ahead of the original release date of the sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, which was set the same year before being pushed to 2022.
Last year, in May 2022, God Of War was one of the free PS Plus games ahead of God Of War Ragnarok releasing in November 2022. October is rapidly approaching so if Sony is going to repeat this with Spider-Man, July is as good of a month as any.
PSVR 2 is already losing to the Meta Quest 2 in the VR headset battle
Reddit and Weep
The r/PlayStationPlus subreddit have a monthly prediction thread, and while they have just about as much info as we do regarding the lineup, there are some very compelling arguments in there worth mentioning.
One theory is that we could see a Final Fantasy title this month to celebrate the launch of Final Fantasy 16. The two candidates floated out for this are Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. However, I'd have to go with Stranger of Paradise if either of these come to pass, as Crisis Core only released in December 2022, which is maybe too soon.
Two of the most prominent predictions in this thread are Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Sifu. As someone who reads up this thread often, these are two of the most common predictions every single month. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day.