The PlayStation Plus Essential lineup for July 2026 came at an unfortunate time. The news dropped the same day as PlayStation’s pair of bombshell announcements that said the company was halting physical disc production in 2028 and shutting off the digital stores on Vita and PS3. A lot got lost in the shuffle there, and it wasn’t helped by the lackluster lead title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. That shooter is joined by CrossCode and For the King 2.
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Here’s an explainer for the three PlayStation Plus Essential titles and how they have progressed since launch. All three will be available to all tiers of PlayStation Plus subscribers from July 7th to August 3rd.
3) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the second Modern Warfare 3 and the third game in this latest Modern Warfare trilogy. This first-person shooter was one of the most maligned Call of Duty titles of all time, as shown by its average score of 58.
Modern Warfare 3 has slick controls, which the series is known for, but this title falters in almost every way. Its campaign is laughably short, meaning its rollercoaster levels don’t have much in the way of buildup. The story itself is also poorly explained and only makes some sense for those who recall a cutscene that played in a previous multiplayer season. It boasts new Open Combat missions that give players a sandbox to complete missions in, but these shallow playgrounds don’t actually give players much agency and offer paltry rewards that aren’t worth the effort.
The Zombies mode is also another series lowlight. It plays like a limited-time mode in Warzone with its hordes of undead that crowd its hideous map. Turning Zombies into an extraction shooter was a poorly thought-out move since it transforms a fast-paced mode into something more sluggish and less rewarding. Competitive multiplayer is the sole highlight since it remasters the incredible maps from 2009’s Modern Warfare 2. It’s overly safe, predictable, and leans on nostalgia, but that at least clears the low bar set by the other modes. Overall, it is very clear that Modern Warfare 3 initially began as an expansion before being hurriedly converted to a full game.
Being a Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3 saw a ton of post-launch support. Of course, plenty of guns and licensed skins flooded the store, the latter of which included characters like Art the Clown from Terrifier, Daryl Dixon and Michonne from The Walking Dead, The Crow from the self-titled movie, wrestlers Cody Rhodes and Rey Mysterio, various Gundams, Cheech and Chong, and Firecracker and A-Train from The Boys, to name a few.
Free support came in the form of new maps (and map variants), modes, balance changes, killstreaks, perks, missions for Zombies, items, schematics, and more. As is the case with every other Call of Duty game, support for this entry dried up around the launch of the following entry, 2024’s Black Ops 6. Modern Warfare 4 is also coming out on October 23rd.
2) For the King 2
For the King 2 is a turn-based roguelike RPG inspired by tabletop RPGs. It came out in 2023 to decent reviews, hitting an average score of 78.
For the King 2 has players moving on a hexagonal grid, which looks like a polygonal representation of a tabletop game. Said hexagons are littered with different points of interest or fights, and players have to weigh where to go. Dice rolls dictate parts of the experience and the procedural nature of it all means there’s variability to contend with. This can mean the game is sometimes absolutely brutal or just simply unfair — death can lead to hours of lost progress, too — but there are at least dials and knobs to turn to ease the pain just a bit. Its turn-based battles are also predicated on stats and dice rolls and encourage tactical movement on its small grid, and while it’s all relatively simple, the aforementioned challenge — combined with its natural predilection for cooperative play — is what gives it some staying power. For the King 2 is rather similar to its predecessor in many ways, yet that doesn’t negate its stronger qualities.
For the King 2 has seen extensive post-launch support. Developer IronOak Games has rebalanced the difficulty to make it more even, streamlined the user interface multiple times, added more enemies, given players access to more gear, tweaked loot drops, patched in an infinite mode and local co-op, made combat faster, implemented manual saving, and much more. The game was criticized at launch for its poor user interface, high difficulty, and bugs, but IronOak has taken many steps over the years to address those concerns and then some. The game also has three premium expansions that are $7.99 apiece and contain two new playable characters each.
1) CrossCode
CrossCode is a retro RPG and the highest-rated (and oldest) game of the month. It originally launched on PC in 2018 to great reviews, earning an average score of 84, before coming to consoles later on.
CrossCode has a Ready Player One-like premise and has players skulking around an in-universe video game, which the story mines to decent effect over its lengthy runtime that can easily last dozens of hours. Combat plays out in real time and has players using melee and ranged attacks and building out their avatar in order to get ahead. While this describes many games, CrossCode excels because of how it forces players to learn grunt and boss patterns in order to succeed, which is often a satisfying, skill-based process. It can sometimes be a bit too difficult or a little tedious, but certain sliders can help mitigate these paint points.
CrossCode had a long development time and then took years to make its way to consoles. As such, most of its post-launch support on PC just launched with the console versions, which included new quests, skins, and New Game Plus. However, it received a couple patches a bit later on, which added crossover content from Quantum Protocol and opened up platform-specific missions for all systems. It had only one paid DLC pack on consoles in the form of A New Home. This $9.99 story-based expansion added a new campaign, bosses, enemies, puzzles, music, and more. Radical Fish Games’ next game, Alabaster Dawn, also recently came out to rave reviews.
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