Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed one of the PS Plus August 2026 classics ahead of the full catalog announcement. Capcom's PS2 action RPG Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams will join the Premium classics lineup this month, first teased during June's PlayStation State of Play and now locked in for a specific date. The early reveal follows a pattern Sony has used before, confirming a single high-profile classics addition ahead of the broader Extra and Premium announcement to build anticipation. The reveal comes alongside a separate trio of monthly games already live since August 4, part of the monthly games lineup available across every PlayStation Plus tiers this month.
Per PlayStation LifeStyle, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams is expected to join the Premium classics catalog on Tuesday, August 18, alongside the rest of that month's PS Plus Extra and Premium additions. Sony will also reveal which games are leaving the service at the end of the monthly window on the same date. The outlet notes Sony is currently testing a staggered PS Plus catalog release schedule in the US, UK, and Japan, meaning those three regions sometimes receive new games on different dates than the rest of the world. Premium classics, however, have tended to land in every region simultaneously, and with only one classic confirmed for August, a staggered rollout for Onimusha specifically looks unlikely. The full Extra and Premium lineup and release schedule was expected by Wednesday, August 12.
Sony has not named specific departing classics as of this writing. The company has confirmed only that departures will be announced August 18, the same date Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams joins the catalog, following its usual pattern of revealing new additions and exits together rather than separately.
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams is a PS2-era hack-and-slash action RPG from Capcom, part of the samurai-horror Onimusha series known for demon-slaying combat and dark feudal Japan settings. Its addition to PS Plus Premium classics gives subscribers access to a game not otherwise available on modern hardware without emulation or a used physical copy.
Accessing PS Plus classics requires an active Premium subscription. Once Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams goes live on August 18, subscribers can find it in the Game Catalog section of the PS5 or PS4 home screen, or by searching for it directly through the PlayStation Store's PS Plus tab.
PS Plus classics generally remain in the Premium catalog for months or years rather than a single-month window, unlike Essential's monthly games. Sony eventually rotates classics out on its own schedule, and access to any classic always requires an active Premium subscription, so it disappears the moment that subscription lapses.
While the classics conversation centers on one Capcom title, PlayStation Plus members already have three new monthly games to work through. Sony's official lineup, live since Tuesday August 4 and claimable through Monday August 31, includes Dying Light 2 Stay Human: Reloaded Edition, which bundles the base game with the Bloody Ties DLC, on PS5 and PS4, Big Walk on PS5, and Signalis on PS4. Dying Light 2 casts players in the role of Aiden Caldwell, a wanderer navigating rival factions across a hostile city where a virus has turned a vast majority of the human population into hordes of zombies, and rival factions aren't the only enemy players face. Big Walk launched day one on PS Plus straight from House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, and leans entirely on cooperative communication and exploration rather than combat, supporting up to twelve players who navigate the world together using tools like walkie-talkies, megaphones, and laser pointers. Signalis brings a classic survival horror experience to the lineup, following a technician Replika named Elster through a surreal retrotech world filled with nightmarish creatures as she searches for her lost partner across a melancholic experience of cosmic dread, offering players a solo trip into a dystopian future rather than a co-op one. Starting August 6, all members can also claim a free MARVEL Tokon: Fighting Souls PlayStation Plus Pack, adding avatars and character poses rather than a fourth full game.
The pack includes five PS5 and PS4 profile avatars inspired by Captain America, Storm, Spider-Man, Doctor Doom, and Ghost Rider, plus a set of Result Screen Character Poses covering 20 characters from the base roster, including Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord, and Peni Parker. The two sets of items are available through the PlayStation Plus section of PlayStation Store or the PlayStation Plus web page starting August 6, and members need to redeem and download the pack before its contents unlock.
ScreenRant's coverage specifically flags Dying Light 2 as one of the standout picks in the current lineup, describing it as blending the tension and stealth of The Last of Us with the open-world chaos of Dead Island. Developed by the studio behind the original Dead Island, Dying Light 2 offers refined parkour across a massive map, upping the speed, animations, and combat usefulness of traversal compared to the original Dying Light. While its story doesn't match The Last of Us for depth, its pervading sense of dread makes exploration and stealth encounters feel similarly tense, and players who prefer a chaotic, Dead Island-style approach to combat can lean into that instead. The outlet notes the game was partially panned at launch but has since proven to be one of the finer open-world zombie titles available, urging subscribers not to skip it before it eventually leaves the service.
Between the early Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams reveal and three fresh monthly games already live, August is shaping up as a genuinely varied month across every PS Plus tier. Essential subscribers get Big Walk, Dying Light 2, and Signalis outright, while Premium subscribers have a confirmed classics addition to look forward to on August 18, alongside whatever else Sony reveals in the fuller Extra and Premium announcement expected days beforehand. Subscribers weighing whether to keep their subscription active this month have more reason than usual to stick around, particularly with Dying Light 2's window on the service likely to close eventually like every other Extra and Premium title before it.
Essential covers the three monthly games claimed permanently to a library. Extra adds a larger rotating catalog of newer titles. Premium builds on Extra with classics like Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, older games from past console generations, plus limited-time game trials, all available only while an active subscription continues.
Olivia Blake · Editor
Editor
