The PlayStation Plus Essential game lineup for September 2026 is more packed than usual. Instead of the typical trio of titles, PlayStation giving players four games this month: Sniper Elite: Resistance, MLB The Show 26, Wobbly Life, and Chained Echoes. And this comes just one month after the viral sensation Big Walk hit the service, a rare day-one release that has now become one of the highest rated games of the year. Regardless, these four games are radically different, and some of which are relatively niche.
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Here is an explainer on each of the four PlayStation Plus Essential games for September 2026. All four will be available to subscribers of all tiers from September 1st to October 5th.
4) Sniper Elite: Resistance
Sniper Elite: Resistance is a stealthy third-person shooter in the long-running Sniper Elite series. It came out in 2025 to middling reception, settling on an average score of 73.
Resistance is, for all intents and purposes, a cheaper standalone expansion to 2022’s Sniper Elite 5. It has basically the same controls, general layout, and look as its predecessor; the two even have the same intuitive Saros-like mechanic that uses the adaptive triggers well for third-person and first-person aiming. However, given Sniper Elite 5‘s general quality, this is not a great thing. These two games are very clearly inspired by Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, but have almost none of the grace or ingenuity seen in Kojima Productions’ final Metal Gear Solid game.
Players can tiptoe around decently sized zones, but the controls are too janky to make any sort of sneaky play rewarding. These zones may have unique attributes like a lighting storm that masks loud noises at certain intervals, however, it’s a relatively bland stealth game that does little of note or out of the ordinary. Sniping a Nazi’s testicles and seeing them explode in slow motion can be a sick joy, but this feature has been with the series for such a long time and it’s just not nearly as impressive anymore. Leaning on old mechanics, failing to push forward at all, telling a paper-thin story with forgettable characters, and having wonky controls all make Resistance an aggressively mediocre experience.
Rebellion has supported this game fairly well after launch with free updates and paid expansions. Free updates have added multiplayer maps, skins, and weapons for everyone. The pricey $34.99 season pass (which costs almost as much as the full game) comes with three campaign missions, three weapon packs, three weapon skin packs, a character skin pack, and, as always, a special mission where players can snipe Adolf Hitler in every body part from his bigoted brain to his black hole of a heart.
3) Wobbly Life
Wobbly Life is a kid-friendly open-world game that original was in early access for around five years before hitting 1.0 in September 2025. It doesn’t have enough critic reviews on either popular review aggregate website, but the handful of professional reviews on them are generally positive, matching its “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam.
Wobbly Life is often described as “Grand Theft Auto for children” and while that label is a little reductive, it gets across the open nature of the game somewhat accurately enough. Players can go around town (or even to space) and complete various tasks, many of which are heavily based around physics and the comedy inherent to watching items bounce around. Some tasks include racing, putting out fires, driving people around in a taxi, mining, making burgers, disposing of toxic waste, and more. Money earned can be spent on cosmetics and houses.
None of this is particularly mechanically satisfying, since it’s all a bit swimmy and, again, dictated by physics. But this isn’t a huge detractor and often a benefit since it is more of an unserious world to goof off in with friends. It supports up to four-player co-op both locally and online, so it’s meant to be a sandbox that lets players wreak havoc in, but the kind of havoc that doesn’t raise a metaphorical Wanted level. It’s also not an intensely bloated open-world game and can be Platinumed in around a dozen or so hours.
Wobbly Life spent years in early access, but it hasn’t seen much support after hitting 1.0. However, its biggest update was recent and added a fairly substantial feature: cross-platform play.
2) MLB The Show 26
MLB The Show 26 is the most recent entry in PlayStation’s long-running baseball franchise. It received lukewarm reviews when it came out in March, coming in at an average score of 74.
MLB The Show 26 was praised for its mechanics, and that takes it rather far, but it was widely viewed as a down year for multiple reasons. As is the case with many annualized sports titles, this installment is almost visually identical to its predecessors and is incredibly similar to the games that came before it. It even had some of the same online issues, as well. The minor new pitching and batting tweaks are novel and both reward skillful play, but they are relatively minor. As such, MLB The Show 26 can often feel like a paid roster update and not like a new game. The Negro League storylines are novel, yet the video explainers around them feel more substantial than the actual playable parts.
San Diego Studio has spent months patching the game, but most of the fixes have been character model updates and bug fixes. There were small, more gameplay-relevant changes, though, like trade popups being more noticeable, the addition of City Connect uniforms and bats for some teams, rule changes to offline Homerun Derby, and tweaks to the aforementioned new pitching mechanic, Bear Down Pitching, that would guarantee a top speed for each of those special pitches.
1) Chained Echoes
Chained Echoes is an RPG that pays homage to the older genre heavyweights from the 1990s. It is easily the most beloved of the bunch here with its average score of 89.
On the surface, Chained Echoes looks the part of the games it is trying to emulate; it doesn’t look too dissimilar from games like Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger and would seem to play easily on a PS1 or SNES. That speaks to its lovely 16-bit art style, but its RPG bona fides go deeper than that. Chained Echoes has a great turn-based combat system that has players trying to manage the almighty Overdrive meter that dictates every fight. It’s imperative for players to keep this meter in a sweet spot that empowers attacks, and going too hard with attacks can make characters take extra damage. It’s a smart way to get players to switch up their moves and utilize more defensive skills.
Chained Echoes also has a deep world worth delving into, one rife with lore and plenty of war-soaked backstory that fills everything out. Despite the darkness of its world, the writing can be surprisingly goofy at times to lighten the mood and speaks to its overall quality script that is brief yet still effective. Chained Echoes is streamlined elsewhere, too, and is where it becomes more than just an homage. Aside from the snappy dialogue, it also has convenient fast travel, quick player movement, and a system that heals players after every fight, all of which help tamp down on bloat and keep things moving throughout its 35-hour campaign.
Being a single-player RPG limits its potential for post-launch support, yet it has seen some updates since its 2022 launch. Such patches have added features like New Game Plus, Chinese and Japanese language support, the ability to re-read tutorials in the menu, the option to lower running sped, additional stat boosts and passive skills for one of the main characters when playing New Game Plus, and various changes regarding the game’s crystals.
Chained Echoes: Ashes of Elrant is the lone premium expansion and is $9.99. It includes new areas, enemies, bosses, music, gear, mini-games, and another playable character.
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