The PlayStation Plus Essential games for November 2025 cover a lot of ground. Stray is the leader of the pack and is a cinematic, cat-based platformer. EA Sports WRC 24 is, as the name implies, a rally racing game. And Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is a satirical strategy game where players have to contend with enemy forces as much as the title’s exaggerated physics. There are a few niches here, but there should be something in this lineup for most people.
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Here’s a breakdown of the three PlayStation Plus Essential games for November 2025, which will be available from November 4th to December 1st for subscribers.
3) Stray
Stray is arguably the lead title for the month. This cinematic platformer-esque game was received well when it came out in 2022, garnering an average score of 84. It was also the first day-one launch game for the revamped version of PlayStation Plus, as it came out on the Extra and Premium tiers on its release day. It has finally made its way to Essential (it was removed from Extra and Premium in July 2023).
Developer BlueTwelve Studio’s debut title Stray is not a meme game and is instead a charming puzzle adventure game where players play as a cat in a neon-soaked dystopia without humans. Mechanically, it’s pretty straightforward, but it benefits from being able to jump around its decrepit, rust-filled world effortlessly, thanks to the natural grace of its feline protagonist. There are minor puzzles, but they aren’t ever too tricky and almost always revolve around the cat’s ability to knock things over or be a menace.
Instead, Stray is special because of its wordless narrative and tone. While the humans have long since died out, the robots that have taken their place have emulated human behavior. This leads to an unconventional world where the best and worst and humanity is reflected in these metal chassis in an unexpectedly moving way, an aspect that fills out its universe and gives the game a notable soul. The cat’s journey to rejoin their squad is cute on a surface level, but their story is more of a conduit for its immaculate vibes and intriguing themes.
Stray did not receive much notable post-launch support through free updates or paid DLC. Aside from bug fixes, the biggest update added a toggle for running, the defluxor gadget, and mashy prompts that pop up when the player needs to shake off enemies. This patch also let players hide the cat deaths, which weren’t ever gruesome or elaborate but likely hard for some people to watch. It never received a photo mode or anything substantial like that.
2) EA Sports WRC 24
EA Sports WRC 24 (or EA Sports WRC) is one of the two racing games from famed developer Codemasters that came out in 2023. It received decent to mixed reviews, coming in at an average score of 78.
This rally racer has longer tracks than Codemasters’ usual games, something the team credited to the switch to Unreal Engine 4. However, this change seems to have led to some noticeable technical issues, something that has partially been addressed with post-launch patches.
The actual racing hits many of the standard notes of a rally racing game with its career mode, time trials, car-building mode, and multiplayer (which supports crossplay). However, it’s bolstered by its weighty handling, something Codemasters is known for. Drifting and accelerating feel great and that’s at the core of any great driving game. It has around 70 cars to pick from and 200 competition stages across 18 WRC rallies, making for quite a bit to get through. It is relatively safe and predictable overall, though, and will likely only appeal to those who already like these types of racing games.
WRC 24 received a decent amount of free and premium post-launch content. It has a $29.99 season pass that comes with three packs. The Hard Chargers Content Pack includes six stages for the Sweden and Greece maps, six legendary classic vehicles, 18 new liveries, and 16 exclusive Moments, a part of the game that (mostly) lets players drive through famous moments in WRC history. The Le Maestros Content Pack has six stages being for the Monte Carlo and Portugal maps and seven classic cars. The Locations & Cars Content Pack comes with two new locations — Tet Rally Latvia and Orlen 80th Rally Poland — as well as five new vehicles, 52 new liveries, and 104 new drivers and co-drivers.
Its free updates contained a bevvy of adjustments, bug fixes, and new features. These feature include new locations, more cosmetics, additional Moments, and Norwegian driver Andreas Mikkelsen as an AI driver. And while VR support was added, this feature is exclusive to the PC version, meaning PSVR2 owners on PS5 are left in the dust.
1) Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator is a silly strategy game that exited early access in 2021. It doesn’t have enough reviews for an official critical consensus, but it is currently sitting at an “Overwhelmingly Positive” score on Steam with over 78,000 reviews.
This strange title has players placing units around a battlefield before starting the battle and letting the soldiers do their thing. These soldiers are just guys with guns and can range from pirates to cowboys to divine angels. The strategy comes from thinking up what units would work the best and how many can be placed before running out of money.
Players have to weigh each unit’s strengths and weaknesses, which makes it more than just a meme game full of floppy people (who are fittingly called “wobblers”) and gives it some genuine depth. While mostly a strategy game, it’s possible to possess a single unit and even though it can be frustrating to control something so wobbly, taking direct control of a unit can be a powerful tool. There is a straightforward campaign, as well as a unit creator and competitive online multiplayer.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator doesn’t have any paid DLC but has gotten its share of post-launch support (not counting the significant number of changes it has seen since its alpha in 2016 and the updates it received before its PS4 release in 2023). These additions include new bits and bobs for the unit creator mode and some quality-of-life features. Developer Landfall also stated in 2022 it would not be getting more content since the team wanted to move on after working on TABS for over half a decade at that point.
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