Sony has unveiled the new games joining PS Plus in May 2025. The next batch of PlayStation Plus titles will be available to download and install on May 6.
The headline game release is Ark: Survival Ascended, which is available alongside boomer shooter Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun.
However, the real star of the show is Balatro, the 90-rated masterpiece that’s in the top 10 best games of 2024 on Metacritic.
The game sees players attempt to beat a target score by playing classic poker hands like flushes, full houses etc.
The twist, however, is that you can pick up booster cards and modifiers that can multiply your score and money earned.
This includes Joker cards with special properties. One Joker may give you an extra card at the start of the round, while another will let you discard additional cards when building your hand.
Other Joker Cards will make cards of a specific suit earn bigger scores whenever they’re played, while further cards might make face cards more valuable, or give you more money at the end of a round.
You can use your money to purchase further Joker cards, add extra cards to add to your deck (which will give you a better chance of getting four of a kind, for example), or cards that level up a certain hand in order to score more points.
Not only is it an incredibly addictive game, but it’s also a remarkable feat, having been made by just one person.
Ark: Survival Ascended, on the other hand, is a survival game in which players battle to survive against the elements and defend against ferocious dinosaurs.
Built using Unreal Engine 5, the game supports 70-person multiplayer on public servers, as well as split-screen and eight person multiplayer in private servers.
Sony explains more: “Are you ready to form a tribe, tame and breed hundreds of species of dinosaurs and other primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain?
“Your new world awaits in this survival sim, reimagined from the ground-up with Unreal Engine 5, with high-end graphic features, advanced physics systems and quality of life revamps in every area.”