Why PS plus needed for online play and game backups
**Why is PS Plus still required for online multiplayer in 2025? This needs to stop.**
Let me give you a concrete example. Ghost of Tsushima Legends — the full co-op multiplayer mode — is completely free to play online on PC via Steam. You buy the game, you play online. That's it. No subscription, no extra paywall. Just the game you paid for.
But on PS5? You need PS Plus on top of the game purchase just to access the same mode.
And it's not just first-party games. Take Arc Raiders — a game that IS an online multiplayer game by design. That's literally the entire product. If you buy it on PS5 without PS Plus, what exactly are you supposed to do? Sit in the main lobby and stare at the screen? You paid full price for an online-only game and you can't even play it without an additional subscription.
PC players on Steam have never had to deal with this. You buy a game, you play it — online or not. That's the standard the entire PC platform has set for decades.
And while we're at it — why is cloud save backup also locked behind PS Plus? On PC, your save files are just files. You can back them up to any drive, cloud service, or USB whenever you want. On PS5, Sony locks local USB save backups for most games and hides cloud saves behind a PS Plus paywall. Your save data — hundreds of hours of progress — held hostage unless you keep paying.
Sony keeps raising PS Plus prices while locking basic functionality behind it. This isn't a "premium service" anymore, it's just a tax on playing games you already own.
