A year after the revamped PS Plus was introduced, players continue to find themselves locked out of games due to a licensing issue. Unsuspecting subscribers who’ve previously claimed a game via PS Plus (now Essential), and redeem it again via PS Plus Extra or Premium, end up overriding their Essential license. Doing so means losing the game(s) in question forever should they leave the Extra/Premium catalogs.
There’s still no fix for locked PS Plus games
We first highlighted this issue last November after some players found that their access to Greedfall was revoked when it left PS Plus Extra. The game was originally offered as part of the service in 2020.
It then emerged that those who redeemed Greedfall via PS Plus Extra overrode the game’s previous license, and contacting Sony for help didn’t prove to be fruitful. The only way for players to continue playing the game was to purchase it.
Redditors report that latest game to suffer the same fate is Mafia 3, which was originally offered as part of PS Plus in 2018. This case is particularly egregious because players who claimed the Mafia Trilogy via PS Plus Extra had their original Mafia 3 license revoked. In other words, if you want to play all three games, it may come at the cost of losing one full-fledged game forever.
As a reminder, Essential games are yours to keep as long as your PS Plus membership is active. Extra and Premium catalogs are temporary. There’s no fix for the aforementioned issue beyond avoiding re-claiming games previously redeemed.