Sony Is Shaking Up Its PlayStation Network Branding

Will it now go all in on PlayStation Plus?

March 20, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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According to reports, Sony is planning to drop the “PlayStation Network” brand by September. This reminds me of what Microsoft was doing when it dropped “Xbox Live” in favor of “Xbox Game Pass.” Nothing is confirmed, but this could lead to Sony going all in on “PlayStation Plus” as its main brand name for anything related to online services.

And in other Sony news, PS5 players have started getting automatic refunds for any purchases they made on Highguard, now that it’s been shut down.

We got to reveal an exclusive card for the upcoming Riftbound set. Learn everything you need to know about the Friendship spell, along with some other unique critters and creatures, in our exclusive above.

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In a surprising twist of events, Subnautica 2 is coming out in just two months (for early access). This comes after a judge ruled that the former Unknown Worlds CEO had to be reinstated after he was ousted by publisher Krafton.

You might remember that Krafton previously tried to shelf Subnautica 2 because it didn’t want to pay out a $250 million bonus to the developers if they hit a certain revenue goal (which was highly likely). The judge reversed basically all of Krafton’s actions here, and in addition, the deadline for that revenue goal has been extended to September to account for the disruption.

More Release Dates on the Horizon

Finally, some good news. Atlus is raising base salaries across the board in order to create a better culture and “foster creativity” at the studio. This is great to see amid a dire time in the industry, where there are layoffs left and right. Just this week alone, we have:

Out of nowhere, Valve completely changed the way Counter-Strike 2 works. Now, reloading discards any remaining bullets in your magazine, making it more realistic and adding some trade-offs to the simple mechanic of reloading a gun.