95%
Highly Likely
It's almost 2026, and while a new year is always exciting, a new month means another batch of PS Plus games is headed towards PS Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium tier subscribers. In what has practically become a monthly tradition, a new report from Billbil-kun at Dealabs has revealed one of the games that kicks off the year for PS Plus Essential subscribers: Need for Speed Unbound.
The latest Need for Speed game in the franchise, Unbound arrived on current-gen consoles on December 2, 2022. It was a more-than-solid racer at the time of its launch, though it wasn't able to reach the highs that made the series so iconic. Though it decidedly fell off the radar of players not too long after its debut, developer Criterion Games and Codemasters have done a good job of updating it with multiple drops of new cars, tracks, challenge modes, etc.
As Wccftech's Nathan Birch put it in his review of the game at launch, "Need for Speed Unbound is the franchise’s best entry in a decade, although the competition for that title wasn't particularly stiff. The game offers polished tech, good (if slightly dated) open-world design, and a varied array of events and challenges, but still lags behind the current open-world racer pack leaders. The fantasy of becoming an underground racing champ is also hampered by a restrictive, ill-considered progression system. Nostalgic fans will find plenty to like here, and more general players might want to consider a test drive once the game is marked down, but “need” may be a strong word to attach to Criterion’s latest."
The game's last major update, Volume 9, arrived earlier in 2025, though Criterion has had its focus shift away from Need for Speed while it worked on delivering Battlefield 6 this past October. Its arrival as a PS Plus Essential game will technically be the second time it has been added to PlayStation's subscription service, as it was made a PS Plus Extra and Premium game catalog title back in February 2024.
So, unfortunately for those subscribers, you're technically getting one game less than you otherwise would if Unbound weren't already available to subscribers on the Extra or above tiers. Though there's always the chance that an added game coming to Extra and Premium subscribers only will make up for it.
It should also be mentioned that, while Billbil-kun has an immaculate record at this point when it comes to announcing PS Plus titles early (they've almost never been wrong), it is still an unofficial report at the time of this writing. So take it for what it's worth.
If you don't believe it'll be one of the three free games for Essential subscribers, and you wouldn't mind starting your 2026 by checking it out, then you can always grab it on the PS Store with the Ultimate Collection edition, currently at 85% off for PlayStation's Holiday Sale.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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