PS Plus Free Game Allows PS3 Fans to Revisit “9/10” Classic

One of 2025’s free PlayStation Plus games — available across all tiers of PS Plus — is a PS3 classic that PlayStation fans are enjoying returning to. The free PS3 game in question specifically hails from 2010, three years before the PS4 released. 2010 was a year headlined by games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, God of War III, and Halo Reach. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, but these were more or less the biggest games of 2010. The free PlayStation Plus game in question wasn’t quite as noteworthy as these releases, but it was no doubt a major launch that specifically came in the busy season of November.

Developed by Criterion Games and published by EA, the free PS Plus PS3 game in question is none other than Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. However, it is not the original PS3 version that was made free via PS Plus, but the PS4 remaster that released in 2020.

For those that missed it, the PS3-era game was free via PS Plus back in January, which means the opportunity to grab it for free is gone. However, since then, PS Plus subscribers have been enjoying the 15-year-old game.

“Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered 2020 on PS Plus is a top tier racing game for me,” reads a popular post on the PS Plus Reddit page. “It has better graphics, controls are not too complicated but still fun, plenty of supercars, drifting, you can choose to be a cop, many devices to slow down or bust enemy cars, night races are gorgeous. 9.5/10.”

“I couldn’t agree more. That’s how Need for Speed games should have been..no filler story, going from A to B just to race…pure racing,” reads one of the comments, echoing the sentiment.

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Of course, everyone’s mileage with this PS3 classic will vary. That said, those that decide to check it out via PS Plus should expect that is about 15 to 25 hours long, on average, and depending on how much side content is experienced. Meanwhile, completionists will need somewhere between 40 and 50 hours with the EA game.

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