May 2025’s PS Plus Monthly Games features Balatro, boomer shooting & dinos

The PlayStation Plus monthly games for May 2025 have been announced and it’s a pretty good month, featuring tons of dinosaurs, a great boomer shooter, and the Poker-inspired card dealing phenomenon that is Balatro.

What are the PS Plus May 2025 games?

The following three games will be available from the first Tuesday of the month, which will be 6th May – no kidding – and they will be available until 2nd June.

Considering that it’s a celebrated Game of the Year contender and nominee from last year, Balatro is likely the biggest included here. The game is a roguelike that takes inspiration from Poker hands, asking you to play card combos in order to generate high scores, while collecting Joker cards that add multipliers, boosters and other effects as you play. It’s hugely addictive and was an easy winner for our Best Independent Game award in 2024. Through 2025, it’s reached even more people as more awards have rolled in, and that attention has led to some interesting collaborations with much bigger budget games.

An then there’s Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. Before Space Marine 2 dropped into our laps last year, this was probably up there as the latest and greatest 40K shooter, leaning into the “Boomer Shooter” fad with retro graphics and retro FPS gameplay to match. In our Boltgun review, Dom said, “The commitment to ‘the bit’ means that Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun stays true to its old-school shooter roots, with very little signposting, apart from the occasional spot of yellow marking to show you can climb up through an area. Otherwise, you’re left to your own devices. The same goes for storytelling, which extends to your servitor’s asides, short loading screen introductions to each area and the occasional cutscene. It doesn’t hurt it, but there were times where I yearned for a little more explanation.”

Rounding out this month’s selection is Ark: Survival Ascended, the current gen revamp of Ark: Survival Evolved within Unreal Engine 5. This remaster fully implements Unreal Engine’s Lumen lighting, Nanite mesh rendering, and all the other new technologies, while Studio Wildcard has gradually reimplemented all of the DLC maps from the original game over the course of the last year and a half – it’s still in Early Access with the final map planned for release in October. It hasn’t had the smoothest launch or reception, but the game has an enduring popularity regardless. Dinos, am I right?

Can you still get the April 2025 PS Plus games?

Yes! You’ve got until Monday 5th May March to claim your PS Plus games, which include:

Source: PS Blog