PS Plus October 2026 Lineup Is F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896 and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2
By CriticalPixel ·
Sony has locked in the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for October 2026, and the headline is a surprisingly meaty one: F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896 and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2. All three are claimable from Tuesday October 6 until Monday November 2, according to the PlayStation Blog post from Adam Michel, Sony's Senior Director of Content Acquisition and Operations. F1 25 and Hunt: Showdown 1896 are PS5 only, while the EDF spin-off also lands on PS4. It is a lineup with one clear star, one solid licensed racer and one cheerful oddball, which is a better spread than some months we have been handed.
Hunt: Showdown 1896 is the reason to log in
Crytek's extraction shooter is the clear pick of the three. Hunt: Showdown 1896 drops you into corrupted backwaters, where you hunt boss monsters, claim a bounty and then survive long enough to extract while rival Hunters try to put you in the dirt. You can go solo or bring up to two teammates, and the tension of stepping on the wrong twig and getting sniped from a hundred yards out is the whole appeal. Eurogamer notes the game earned a Recommended badge back in 2021, that console versions only arrived late in 2024, and that a 2.0 overhaul last summer should keep the experience fresh. The Steam store page currently lists 66 percent positive across about 1,351 user reviews from the last 30 days, so the community mood on the PC side is mixed rather than glowing, which is worth knowing before you sink a weekend into it.
There is a bonus attached too. PlayStation Plus members also get a Hunt: Showdown 1896 Starter Pack on October 6, part of a set of horror themed HorrorFest bundles. The same promo covers a Call of Duty: Warzone Horror Bundle from October 1 and an Overwatch 2 Dragur Reinhardt pack with five tier skips on October 7. Those are in-game item bundles, so you need the base game to use them. They are small perks, but a starter pack on day one of the monthly game is a smart nudge for people who have never touched Hunt before.
F1 25 and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2
F1 25 is the official game of the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship, and Sony's blurb pushes Career mode and My Team 2.0, where you run a team as its owner. There is also a new multiplayer mode in F1 World where you and your friends race as a squad against AI drivers. The catch worth stating plainly is that this is the 2025 season game, so it is not the freshest racer on the shelf. That said, free racing games with a full career mode are rarely a bad grab, and Eurogamer admitted it never reviewed this one, so there is no official verdict to lean on.
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is the wild card. It is a voxel flavored spin-off where the Earth is square, giant enemies are everywhere, and you pick a squad of four from the teammates you rescue. Soldiers from the mainline EDF games and the spin-offs show up, along with redesigned voxel versions of old enemies and some new ones. You get four player online co-op plus two player local split screen on both PS5 and PS4. Eurogamer says it sounds like a fun afternoon knockabout, and that is probably the right expectation. It is dumb, loud and built for couch play, and nobody should be mad about that.
Last call for September and the community mood
If you have not claimed September's games yet, you have until Monday October 5. That month's lineup was Sniper Elite: Resistance, MLB The Show 26, Wobbly Life and Chained Echoes, so there is plenty of value sitting in your queue right now. Add them before the deadline passes, because the claim window closes the day before the new batch arrives.
As for reaction, it is limited so far. The lineup only went live on September 30, and most of what we found on X on the morning of October 1 was accounts relaying the list rather than reacting to it. Nobody has produced a meaningful consensus, so treat any early verdict on this month's selection as thin. Hunt: Showdown 1896 is the game people will argue about, since the Steam sentiment suggests a loyal but divided player base.
The CriticalPixel take
This is a good month, and Hunt: Showdown 1896 is a legitimate headline instead of the usual filler. The shooter is a demanding, unforgiving experience, and handing it to every PS Plus member is a smart way to grow its console player base. The honest criticism is that F1 25 is a season old, and the EDF spin-off is a niche pick that will land with fans and bounce off everyone else. Still, a recent extraction shooter, a full career racer and a four player co-op romp for the cost of a subscription you already pay is a fair deal. Grab all three before November 2, play Hunt first, and keep an eye on those September games before they disappear.
The bigger picture is whether Sony keeps feeding the monthly lineup with games this strong. The service has plenty of critics, and month to month value is the best argument it has. October gives subscribers a reason to feel good about the fee. If the next few months follow this pattern, the complaints get quieter. If they do not, expect the usual grumbling to return fast, and Sony will have earned it.
Sources
PlayStation Blog: PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for October
Eurogamer: Here are our PS Plus monthly games for October 2026