Horizon Forbidden West – this is the first major PlayStation exclusive to be added to the service since Sony revamped it (pic: Sony)



It looks as if 12 months may be the average time to wait for major PlayStation exclusives to appear on PS Plus.



Back when Sony began rolling out its revamped PlayStation Plus service, the company said it wouldn’t go the Microsoft route and add first party games to the service’s free catalogue at launch .



Sony claimed this was to prevent their exclusives dropping in quality, which is a roundabout way of saying it can’t afford the drop in sales numbers making these games free to PS Plus users would cause (a decision that’s recently been justified by Microsoft itself ).



However, this doesn’t mean major exclusives won’t ever be added to the PS Plus catalogue, as the likes of Returnal and Insomniac’s Spider-Man games are already included. And according to a new leak it looks like Horizon Forbidden West is set to join just a year after it launched.



The leak comes from the ever reliable billbil-kun, who has consistently and accurately shared which free games will be added to PS Plus each month.



While they haven’t shared the full line-up, they’ve claimed that Scarlet Nexus , Resident Evil 7 , and Borderlands 3 will also be included on February 21.




PREMIERE February 2023 PS Plus Game Catalog additions 🔹Horizon Forbidden West 🔹Scarlet Nexus 🔹Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 🔹Borderlands 3 🔹And more to come… ⌛️Available from February 21th #PlaystationPlus #Extra #Premium #Playstation pic.twitter.com/4gsufdUEOc — billbil-kun (@billbil_kun) February 15, 2023




Horizon Forbidden West is the real headline act though, since it’s the first major exclusive to be added to PS Plus’ catalogue of free games since the service’s relaunch.



There was Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Stray last July, but both are third party titles and while the latter was also a day one addition, it was described as an ‘anomaly’ and thus an exception to the rule.



The inclusion of Horizon Forbidden West this month could suggest that fans need to wait at least 12 months before major first party games will be added to the free catalogue.



So, for example, God Of War Ragnarök isn’t likely to be added until this November at the very earliest.



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There’s obviously no guarantee this will be the case for every first party release , since Sony itself has never issued a statement on the matter.



Plus, there are still some exclusives, even from the PlayStation 4, that have yet to be added, such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart , Sackboy: A Big Adventure , and both the original The Last Of Us and its sequel .









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