PS Plus Extra day-one launch game Humanity was not a smash hit for the service, but in Lee’s opinion, Sony still needs more games like it.
Whether you loved collecting Humanity trophies when the game launched on PS Plus Extra back in May 2023, or whether you largely ignored the puzzle game, you’ll hardly be surprised to hear the game’s active player count has nothing on 2022’s PS Plus success story Stray. Despite its lower player count, however, Lee still thinks the game stands out among the best indie games on PlayStation list and can think of three big reasons why Sony’s PS Plus needs indie gems like Humanity.
Why Sony needs games like Humanity in the PS Plus Games Catalog — Opinion
According to our exclusive gameplay data from 2.9 million active PSN accounts, which we use to power our top 40 PlayStation Chart, Humanity received only 29.47% of the players Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart saw when both games debuted on PS Plus (stats from Monday, May 22, 2023). That wasn’t enough to make the top 40 most popular PS5 and PS4 games chart, and since then the game has lost a further 46.92% of its players (Monday, June 6, 2023).
For comparison, the previous PS Plus Extra day one launch game Tchia saw 2.95x as many players in its launch week back in March 2023. Plus, Tchia‘s player numbers can hardly compete with the first PS Plus Extra day one launch game Stray, which topped the chart in its debut week back in July 2022. Looking at the trajectory of the games up to and including Humanity, we wouldn’t be surprised if Sony soon scrapped its day-one PS Plus launch game initiative due to diminishing returns.
This would be a crying shame, however, as the player numbers do a poor job of expressing just how good Humanity is — especially as a big launch title for PS Plus. In fact, I can think of three areas in which Sony benefits from having more games like Humanity rather than less, even if occasionally the player count doesn’t set the world on fire.
For one, Humanity keeps up the perception of Sony’s PS Plus as the home for high-quality indie game releases, which is good for the brand. On Metacritic, all three PS Plus day-one launch games so far hold a generally strong critical reception, with Tchia at 77%, Stray at 83%, and Humanity above them both with 85%.
PS Plus does get far fewer new game additions than its rival, Xbox Game Pass, but one way in which it makes those smaller numbers count is by having such consistent quality in its day-one titles. Game Pass’ shotgun spray approach to adding new titles means there’s no throughline for quality, so for every Vampire Survivors or Weird West gets, there’s an equivalent Homestead Arcana or Atomic Heart that misses the mark.
The second reason Sony should want games like Humanity on PS Plus: it’s good for the games themselves. In an interview discussing Tchia on PS Plus, which recently amassed over one million players, the game’s director Phil Crifo said: “We’ve received feedback from players who told us that they wouldn’t have given Tchia a chance if the game hadn’t been on PS Plus.”
While we don’t know yet whether Humanity‘s developers have benefitted in a similar way, it’s clear that allowing smaller studios, like Tchia developers Awaceb, the chance to reach wider audiences with PS Plus stands to benefit everyone involved. For us gamers, we get easy access to new games. For the developer, the exposure grants them greater resources to build their next title. And for Sony, having worked closely with an up-and-coming studio, there’s always the potential for further collaboration, or at the very least future third-party support for its PlayStation platform.
Finally, the third reason Sony needs games like Humanity on PS Plus: it helps make up for PlayStation’s lack of diverse and experimental first-party titles, which is good for the fans. If you’ve scanned the PS Plus Premium catalog lately, you might have noticed that Sony used to make a lot more weird stuff back in the PS3 days and earlier. Games like The Legend of Dragoon and Jumping Flash on PS1, No Heroes Allowed and Pursuit Force on PSP, and Tokyo Jungle, Elefunk, Rain, and The Last Guy on PS3 — just to name a few.
While the quality of Sony’s output is certainly a lot more consistent today, much of its first-party offerings feel (at least to me) a little safe, with the recent PlayStation Showcase 2023 coming off as rather boring. However, recently it’s been through PS Plus that we’re seeing Sony put the most effort into surprising us with weird, out-there ideas, and there’s something of the old Sony underdog spirit in its approach to PS Plus — likely because the service trails so far behind Xbox Game Pass.
While Stray‘s platforming and Humanity‘s puzzle-solving hardly reinvent the wheel, you have to at least appreciate that their concepts and presentation offer experiences we’ve not exactly had on PS5 or largely anywhere. Seeing Sony put effort into funding and promoting smaller, riskier projects helps balance the scales for those of us who have stuck with PlayStation for a few generations and feel a little lost in Sony’s constant push for more live-service titles and blockbuster AAA dramas.
With its weird premise, ominous name, and the fact that it’s a puzzler, it’s really no surprise Humanity hasn’t done better on PS5 and PS4. Yet that doesn’t mean the game will go overlooked by players hungry for something different to play, and Sony shouldn’t be discouraged by the game’s initial performance. More than any day-one game so far, Humanity convinces us of the potential of PS Plus to offer players variety, and we earnestly hope it signals the start of something rather than the end.
Have you had the chance to check out Humanity? Would you play more oddball stuff like it on PS Plus? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below.
