PlayStation Plus Officially Adds One Of The Best-Looking Open-World Games Ever Made

Published Oct 15, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

PlayStation Plus is constantly getting new releases, a facet of its design that all but ensures subscribers are glued to their screens, their subscription safe for yet another month. Fortunately, these additions are, more often than not, actually worthwhile, offering expansive experiences players may have missed out on the first time around due to the exorbitant price of new games or simply because their backlog had grown awfully long.

PlayStation Plus' October lineup is already pretty stacked, with users getting their hands on a number of high-profile titles and compelling releases. Being added to that is one of the most gorgeous open-world games ever created, a truly stunning title with the substance to back it up. With a great gameplay loop, detailed world, and a unique twist on the familiar open-world formula, PS Plus subscribers should absolutely give this new addition a try.

This PS Plus Open-World Game Is Absolutely Gorgeous

There is an abundance of phenomenal open-world games on PS Plus, something that is both a blessing and a curse, their lengthy runtimes eating away at your month's increasingly exorbitant subscription fee while offering you unprecedented access to incredibly immersive worlds like no other. Among these amazing open-world experiences is Horizon Forbidden West, a truly exceptional open-world title that used to be on the service between 2023 and 2024.

Sadly, Sony removed it, forcing players to purchase the game at full price or buy it secondhand. While prices for the open-world title have gone down significantly, and it is frequently on sale, it is still a fairly expensive title on account of it being a first-party release. Fortunately, it is finally being added back to PlayStation Plus for the foreseeable future as an Extra/Premium title. This is fantastic news, as Horizon Forbidden West is one of the most beautiful open-world games of all time.

Its stunning environments, devastated by war and overtaken by nature, are a sight to behold, elevated by creative art design, dense and detailed foliage, and numerous biomes, each with its own distinct flavor. Traversing across rolling dunes and through the thick thickets of Horizon Forbidden West's living and breathing tropical forests makes for a mind-blowing experience you're unlikely to find in any other open-world title. It helps that Horizon Forbidden West is as fun to play as it is to look at, with its refinement of the previous games' core gameplay conventions paving the way for a more expansive experience.

Horizon Forbidden West Is A Must-Play On PS Plus

Horizon Forbidden West's glowing reviews painted it as a must-play open-world title back in 2022, and that absolutely remains the case nearly half a decade later. While its approach to the typical open-world fluff does often veer too close to Ubisoft territory, for the most part, everything you do in the game is immensely enjoyable. Of course, the aforementioned jaw-droppingly beautiful environments help to sell the experience at all times, making even the most tedious of fetch quests (not that you'll find many in Horizon Forbidden West) a joy to embark upon.

Only the base game of Horizon Forbidden West is included in your PlayStation Plus subscription. To access its DLC, Burning Shores, you'll need to buy it separately.

If you haven't played Horizon Forbidden West yet, then now is absolutely the right time to do so. Even amidst all the controversy surrounding the series and the upcoming release of its live service entries, Forbidden West stands tall as a prime example of an era in which PlayStation's approach to first-party releases was not just great, but made sense. Horizon Forbidden West is a fantastic addition to the PlayStation Plus catalog and a game I'm sure many will thoroughly enjoy playing for as long as it sticks around.

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