Madden is on its way out. So is Persona 5 Tactica. And two separate Toy Story departures from the Premium tier, which almost never happens in the same month.
Sony hasn’t said a word yet about what’s coming to PlayStation Plus in September 2026. But we now know a fair bit about what’s going.
August set a bar September has to clear
PlayStation is in the middle of an enormous debate right now about whether players have the right to access physical media, and that argument is soaking up most of the oxygen. Behind it, the machinery keeps turning. PS Plus gets its monthly updates from Sony either way.
August was probably the strongest month the service has had in a long while. Helldivers 2 and Dying Light 2 both rejoined the catalog for subscribers, which is the kind of one-two that makes people stop threatening to cancel for a few weeks.
September starts from a different place. All we have so far is the subtraction column.
Why these specific games are walking
Most of the removals were entirely predictable if you’ve been paying attention to the release calendar.
EA Sports Madden NFL 26 is almost certainly being pulled to clear room for the new game, which has just landed in players’ hands. Nothing sells a football game like quietly removing last year’s football game from the subscription your customers already pay for.
Disney has confirmed a definitive collection of classic Toy Story games due out in October 2026. That’s the reason for the unusual double departure from the Premium tier this time around. Two exits from one tier in a single month is odd. A repackaged collection arriving a few weeks later explains it.
Persona 5 Tactica is the simplest case. It has just completed a full year on PS Plus, and it’s likely being removed this month to avoid any licensing issues.
The Shadowrun situation nobody has confirmed
Here’s the part worth acting on. The Shadowrun trilogy, made up of Returns, Dragonfall – Director’s Cut and Hong Kong, has been available at the Extra and Premium tiers for some time.
There’s been no official announcement about its removal. But all three are currently sitting in the “Last chance to play” section, which is Sony’s version of a polite cough.
If you’ve been meaning to get to them, play it safe and work through them now. Dragonfall alone is a long weekend.
The additions are the real question
We don’t yet know what’s planned to arrive on PlayStation Plus in September. Sony will announce it when Sony announces it.
The complication is the mood. Read the replies under the company’s posts right now and the vitriol is thick enough that it’s difficult to think of any single game that could win players around. Whatever lands next month arrives into an audience that’s already annoyed about something else entirely.
Which is a rough spot for a service that just gave people Helldivers 2 and got a comment section full of people talking about disc drives.
