PS Plus Essential October Games: F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896 and EDF World Brothers 2 From 6 October

F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896 and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 are the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for October, Sony announced on the PlayStation Blog on 30 September. All three can be claimed on every PS Plus tier from Tuesday 6 October until Monday 2 November 2026.

This article is built on Sony's announcement, the Steam store pages and review data for each game, and Metacritic, all checked on 30 September 2026 at around 17:40 UTC. Steam's US prices are used only as a reference for what the games cost outside the subscription: PlayStation Store prices vary by region.

What are the PS Plus Essential games for October 2026?

Two of the three are PS5-only on PS Plus; Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is the one to claim if you are still on a PS4. Here is how they compare on the numbers that are public.

Two caveats on the scores. Metacritic's page for the 1896 relaunch of Hunt shows 80 from just four reviews, so the 81 above belongs to the original Hunt: Showdown page, which has 25. And World Brothers 2's Steam score rests on 237 reviews, a much thinner sample than the other two.

How much would the three games cost to buy?

At Steam's full US prices the trio adds up to $129.97: $49.99 for F1 25, $29.99 for Hunt: Showdown 1896 and $49.99 for World Brothers 2. None of the three was discounted on Steam when we checked. The one catch is F1 25's newest content: the 2026 Season Pack, released on 3 June 2026, is a separate $24.99 purchase on Steam. It adds Audi and Cadillac to the grid, the 2026 cars and regulations and the new Madring circuit in Madrid.

What is each game, and who is it for?

F1 25 is Codemasters' official game of the 2025 Formula One season, launched on 30 May 2025. Sony highlights Career, the My Team 2.0 mode in which you own a team, and a squad mode in F1 World where friends race together against AI drivers. It had 7,310 players on Steam at 17:37 UTC, which says more about the PC audience than the PS5 one, but the game is clearly still being played.

Hunt: Showdown 1896 is Crytek's extraction shooter: you track down a monster boss, claim the bounty and fight other hunters on the way out, alone or with up to two teammates. It is the busiest of the three on PC, with 22,282 concurrent Steam players at 17:37 UTC, and also the most divisive, at 73.7% positive across more than 279,000 reviews. Push Square's view is that the PS Plus slot makes sense as a way to boost its player population, which matters in a game built on player-versus-player fights.

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is D3Publisher's voxel spin-off of the EDF series, released on Steam on 26 September 2024. You build a squad of four from soldiers collected across the series and fight redesigned versions of old enemies, with four-player online co-op and two-player split screen on both PS5 and PS4. It is the only one of the three you can also claim for PS4.

What should you do before 6 October?

Claim September's games first. Sniper Elite: Resistance, MLB The Show 26, Wobbly Life and Chained Echoes can be added to your library until Monday 5 October, the day before the new batch arrives. As VGC notes, claimed games stay playable for as long as you keep a PS Plus subscription on any tier.

Sony also lists a few extras for members this month: a Call of Duty: Warzone Horror Bundle from 1 October, a Hunt: Showdown 1896 Starter Pack from 6 October and an Overwatch 2 Dragur Reinhardt pack with five tier skips from 7 October, part of its HorrorFest packs. Limited-edition Spider-Man: Brand New Day avatars arrive through Sony Pictures Core on 6 October.

What we don't know yet

Sony's post gives the dates but not the time of day the games switch over, and it warns that the lineup may differ by region. It had also not announced October's Game Catalog additions for Extra and Premium when we published. For the paid releases competing for your time this month, see our list of every October 2026 release date.