Find the right one for you

This is easy: If you own one or more Apple products and like video games, you should have Apple Arcade.
 
There’s something for everyone in Apple’s catalog of more than 100 games. For $5 per month you get a fully fleshed out library of mobile-friendly games spanning all genres, from major publishers and indies alike. You also won’t find any of them in any other app store, including Apple’s, thanks to mobile exclusivity.
 
You do get a smaller selection of games than some of the other subscriptions offer. But there’s a high bar for quality in Apple’s (entirely kid-friendly) curation, and with Family Sharing turned on you can always have someone to play with. The only catch is that you’ll need an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or macOS PC.

Android users have a subscription service of their own in Google Play Pass. It’s $5 per month and allows for up to six family members to share it, just like Apple’s. But that’s where the similarities end.
 
Where Apple Arcade delivers a comparatively small library of new-ish exclusives, Google delivers a hefty lineup of more than 350 games (and apps, too). Most of it is older, but you still get a great selection of critically acclaimed and widely beloved titles to choose from. It’s mobile’s greatest hits, basically.
 
Play Pass might be best suited to new Android users or people who just haven’t picked up tons of popular apps and games over the years. But even if you do own some of the options in the library Google’s assembled, there’s a lot of value here.

Sony’s PlayStation Now technically launched in 2014, but it’s come a long way since then. We’ll skip the history lesson and focus on what you get right now: A selection of more than 800 PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 games, many of which can be downloaded and installed on a PS4 and all of which can be streamed to a PS4 or PC.
 
All you need for streaming is a DualShock 4 controller (which you have if you already own a PS4) and an internet-connected computer from the past five years. The PC app for PlayStation Now lacks a search feature and can be challenging to navigate, but the games themselves work well.
 
The only place where PS Now really comes up short is with new games. Sony doesn’t give you every new PlayStation original on day one like Xbox Game Pass does. That said, this is still a great deal for PS4 owners who like the idea of having a deep library that’s always available.
 
One final thing to note: While Sony does require a PlayStation Plus subscription for online gaming (just like Xbox Live Gold), you don’t need PS Plus for PS Now games. Anything you can get from your Now subscription lets you play online, whether or not you’re a Plus subscriber.

You have to ask yourself something as a Switch owner: Do you want rest easy in the knowledge that your 100-hour Breath of the Wild save data is safely stored away in the cloud? If the answer to that question is “yes” then Nintendo Switch Online is worth the $20 annual commitment.
 
You do get some free games as well. Subscribers can download a pair of Switch apps that let you access a library of around 100 NES and SNES games. (Nintendo adds new ones regularly, too.) You’ll find a good mix in there, from widely beloved favorites like Super Mario Bros. 3 to deep cuts like StarTropics.
 
Subscribers also have the ability to play multiplayer Switch games online (provided the game supports it) and will sometimes receive special offers from Nintendo. But again, the big draw here is really cloud saves and classic games. For $20 per year, that’s an OK deal.

Uplay+ basically turns Ubisoft, the publisher, into one, big MMO subscription. You get every Ubisoft game that comes out along with all the add-on content and digital bonuses. That means anything Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and a whole lot of others is yours.
 
The $14.99/month subscription also includes access to a library of all the Ubisoft games and extra content. If there’s any kind of beta test before one game or another comes out, you get into that as well. That’s pretty much it. There’s just one catch: It’s for PC gamers only.
 
This is a great deal if must play every single Ubisoft game, and you play them on PC. It’s no big deal if there’s one Ubi franchise or another you’re not a fan of, but the people who benefit most from this service are the ones who always plan to dive deep on the publisher’s most popular properties as each new game comes out.

Humble Choice is another one for the PC gamers, but it works a bit differently than the services we’ve covered so far. The big differentiating point: Any games you get from Humble during a subscription are yours to keep, even if that subscription lapses.
 
The simplest “Lite” subscription lets you grab anything (and everything) from a “Humble Trove” library, which consists of close to 100 games. Most of them are indies (which isn’t a bad thing!) and they’re all DRM-free, so you’ll be able to run them without connecting to Humble or any other service to confirm you own them. You also get a 10 percent discount on any Humble Store purchases.
 
In addition to the Humble Trove and discount, stepping up to the “Basic” subscription also lets you choose from a selection of yours-to-keep games every month. That monthly selection is curated by Humble and usually consists of 10-15 games that are, for whatever reason, bigger and buzzier than what you’ll find in the Trove. Basic subscribers choose three games from that list and top-tier “Premium” subscribers can choose nine. (Premium also comes with a 20 percent Humble Store discount.)
 
Humble Choice is a good option (again, for PC only) if you have varied tastes and an open mind about games but would rather take recommendations on what to play. Getting to keep the games you pick up is a huge bonus, but you should make sure your tastes line up with the (publicly posted) selections cued up by Humble’s curators every month.
 
Disclosure notice: Humble Bundle is also owned by Mashable’s parent company, Ziff Davis.

Utomik takes a different kind of approach as a PC gaming subscription. It’s not quite a streaming service, but you’re also not installing full games. Instead, the service downloads the bits and pieces it needs in the background while you’re playing. So you never use more than a certain amount of storage for each game, and since it’s all running on your home hardware you don’t have to worry (as much) about streaming bandwidth.
 
The games catalog features more than 1,000 titles from a range of publishers, including Warner Bros., Epic Games, and Deep Silver. Brand new releases aren’t necessarily added right away, but the catalog does grow regularly. Utomik also keeps subscriptions pretty simple, with a $6.99/month all-you-can-play tier and a $14.99/month family plan that works the same way, but for up to four users.
 
Utomik has some blind spots when it comes to major publishers – Activision, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Square Enix don’t participate – but the service is home to a range of quality games, from big blockbusters like the Batman: Arkham or Metro series to indies like the recently released Kunai and Coffee Talk.

If streaming your games seems appealing, you might want to give Shadow a peek. Your subscription pays for what is essentially a gaming PC rental that streams games to an app you install in Windows, MacOS, or Linux on PC; as well as Android, iOS, Apple TV, or Android TV. You don’t get any games when you subscribe, but Shadow can download, install, and stream to you any games you happen to own or purchase yourself.
 
It’s pricier than Stadia, with a monthly subscription starting at $12.99 – though that’s an introductory price, and available only if you commit to an annual plan. Normal pricing is $24.99 monthly for subscribers with an annual commitment and $34.99 for month-to-month subscribers. The ostensible advantage for paying this higher price is having a gaming PC in Shadow’s network that is entirely your own. It won’t ever come home to you, but it also won’t be streaming multiple games to multiple people all at once.
 
Shadow is something to consider if you’ve got great internet at home and a desire to play PC games that your current machine can’t handle. Maybe it’s out of date. Maybe it broke down. Maybe you don’t even own one! Shadow positions itself as an alternative to buying or upgrading a computer of your own.

GeForce Now is the newest player on the game subscriptions scene, and it’s another streaming service. Nvidia ran a semi-public beta test for more than a year before the service formally launched in Feb. 2020, but now anyone can subscribe.
 
GeForce Now is similar in a lot of ways to Shadow. There’s no ready-made games library for subscribers, it’s just streaming. For an introductory price of $4.99/month you get priority access to streaming (more on that below), four hours of playtime (though you can immediately queue up again after a session ends), and some fancier graphics turned on in your streams.
 
There’s also a free tier that limits your play sessions to one hour before forcing you to queue up again. Free users also lose priority access, so you’ll probably wait a little (or a lot) longer than paying subscribers before it’s your turn to play. For free and paid subscribers both, any game you play comes from your personal library.
 
GeForce Now is still so new that some basic features remain in flux. Certain games that were available during the beta, including titles from Activision, Rockstar Games, and others, are now unavailable to stream post-release. Keep that in mind if you’re thinking about committing long-term.