PS Plus Premium marks its biggest hit yet with the debut of Sly Cooper on PS2

Those Sly Cooper and Thievius Racconus trophies arrived on PS5 and PS4 as part of the first wave of new PS2 games to arrive on PS Plus Premium. In response to the good news, PS Plus Premium subscribers rushed to play Sly Cooper and Thievius Raccoonusproving that the demand for PS2 games on PS5 has been real all along.

The PS2 game Sly Cooper is the biggest PS Plus Premium game to date

• First Sly Cooper the game marked the biggest PS Plus Premium debut to date
• The PS2 game debuted with a player count 2.5% higher than Legend of the Dragon
• Sly Cooper and Thievius Racconus is the eighth biggest PS Plus game of 2024 so far

Using a sample of game data from over 3.1 million active PSN accounts (courtesy of our partnership with GameInsights), we’ve tracked down the biggest games to hit PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium. This includes the first batch of PS2 games ported to PS5 in June 2024: Sly Cooper and Thievius Racconus, The legend of the tomb raiderAND Star Wars The Clone Wars.

Previously, the biggest game to hit PS Plus Premium was Sony’s Legend of the Dragon — The beloved PS1 JRPG that joined the subscription scheme in early 2023. That PS1 classic has remained the top-performing game on PS Plus Premium for over a year now, but it’s finally been dethroned by no one other than Sly CooperPS2 first release.

In PS Plus launch week (week ending Sunday, June 16, 2024), Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus attracted 2.5% more PS5 and PS4 players than The Legend of Dragoon managed in its own PS Plus launch week. It’s not a huge margin of victory, but it’s still enough to get by Sly Cooper the best performing PS Plus Premium game since the highest subscription tier launched in 2022.

The five best PS Plus Premium games so far

#1 – Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racconus (June 2024)
#2 – Legend of the Dragon (February 2023)
#3 – The legend of the tomb raider (June 2024)
#4 – Twisted metal (July 2023)
#5 – Punishment of resistance (February 2024)

While Tomb Raider Legend also saw a strong debut on PS5, Sly Cooper without 39.66% most active PS5 and PS4 players that week. Every other game released on PS Plus Premium has failed to match these top three games in terms of player count.

True, it’s worth noting that there’s still a significant gap between what counts as a success on PS Plus Premium and what counts as a successful game on PS Plus in general. As for only games added to PS Plus Extra and Premium in 2024, Sly Cooper is just the eighth biggest PS Plus game of the year so far.

The 10 best PS Plus Extra games of 2024 (so far)

#1 – Dave Diver (April 2024)
#2 – Red Dead Redemption 2 (May 2024)
#3 – The need for untethered speed (February 2024)
#4 – Marvel’s Midnight Suns (March 2024)
#5 — Grand Theft Auto San Andreas – Final Edition (May 2024)
#6 – Little Tina’s Wonderland (January 2024)
#7 – Animal well (April 2024)
#8 – Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racconus (June 2024)
#9 – drug (May 2024)
#10 – Resident Evil 2 (January 2024)

Has a 85.11% difference in active players count between Sly Cooper and this year’s biggest PS Plus Extra game, Dave Diver. Zoom in a little further and you’ll remember that Dave the Diver is only the third biggest game to grace the PS Plus Extra. Lost remains the biggest PS Plus Extra game since the introduction of new PS Plus tiers in 2022, with Grand Theft Auto V ranks second

So it’s important to remember that in the meantime Sly Cooper is the biggest PS Plus Premium game we’ve seen on PS5 and PS4 so far, it’s still a relatively small piece of the pie as far as Sony is concerned. Ultimately, we must reckon with the notion that Sly Cooper is likely to increase the number of subscribers less effectively than Little Tina’s Wonderland.

If anything, at least the success of Sly Coopera beloved PS2 classic, it shows that old Sony favorites still have the power to command the significant attention of PS Plus subscribers. Let’s hope Sly’s strong debut encourages Sony to continue bringing more PS2 games to PS5 and PS4. Maybe one of those classic games will really make subscribers jump into the PS Plus Premium Classic Catalog one day.

Have you played this PS2 classic on PS Plus Premium? Fancy tracking down this PS2 platinum trophy? If you’re not, it’s worth noting that we have some Sly Cooper platinum trophy tips that might make the game a little easier for you. Either way, let us know what you think of Sly’s success in the comments below.