The 15 best PS5 games to play right now

sony

Kratos accomplished many Herculean tasks in his time – quite literally – but living up to the hype that came with God of War: Ragnarok was perhaps his toughest quest yet. Alas, the taciturn man of Sparta has done it again. While not a perfect game, God of War: Ragnarok is a worthy sequel to its stellar predecessor and easily one of the most satisfying games of 2022.

PlayStation / S.E.I.

Guerilla Games might have a cursed release planned. Horizon Zero Dawn was great, but quickly overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, one of the best games already. When Horizon Forbidden West was released, it was followed a week later by Elden Ring, which sucked all the oxygen out of the gaming world for at least a month.

But don’t count on Aloy. Its second adventure is visually stunning and continues to explore the fascinating world created by the first game (even if some characters still look like cardboard cutouts).

The gameplay introduces a new Pullcaster hook that unlocks new platforming shapes, as well as the dynamics of multiple underwater levels. It also has new weapons and gnarly machines to destroy. Give Aloy a chance.

Bethesda

Arkane Studios’ Deathloop injects the thrilling, open-ended stealth action gameplay of the Dishonored series as part of a time loop, delivering 2021’s most inventive first-person action game. Explore Blackreef Island while the cunning and equally hilarious Colt showcases Deathloop’s skill at handling comedy and eccentric, ultra-violence.

Most of the encounters you’ll have will leave you in awe of how you can push the intricate design of its clockwork world to assassinate key targets and break the infinite loop. But when you add another player who can invade your game as Colt’s former lover turned rival Julianna, Blackreef Isle becomes an impromptu multiplayer arena that sees one player chase the other. Deathloop is a must-have PS5 game.

Check out CNET’s full review.

Annapurna Interactive

In 2019, Untitled Goose Game showed how fun it could be to wreak havoc as a rogue avian. In 2022, developers BlueTwelve Studio let players inhabit the body of a stray cat on a quest to return home. In Stray, you control a cat who has found himself in a futuristic neon-soaked city populated by robots and a few carnivorous aliens.

“Rarely does a game offer an entirely new perspective on how we can experience familiar surroundings, and rarer still for all of its mechanics to be designed with such confidence,” GameSpot’s Alessandro Barbosa wrote in his review. of the game, in which he gave Stray a 9/10 rating. “It’s a consistently satisfying adventure with a charming company story that rarely misses a beat throughout its well-paced runtime.

Insomniac

The Ratchet & Clank series is synonymous with the PlayStation brand, and even after nearly 20 years of gaming, Rift Apart remains one of the best entries in the series.

Rift Apart leans heavily on the series’ tested action-platforming formula with a healthy dose of over-the-top weaponry, but the latest game features one of the strongest stories the franchise has ever seen, delivering longtime fans and newcomers a compelling plot to follow.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a great showpiece of what the PS5 can do, with levels shaped around the console’s super-fast hard drive, and left us more excited for the future of the series.

Square-Enix

2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake seemed almost too good to be true. Revisiting the world of Final Fantasy VII and seeing the classic cast of heroes in a new and visually stunning light was a surreal and thrilling experience. It managed to surpass its moniker of being just another remake, and it was indeed one of the best RPGs of the year. However, the catch is that this is only part of a bigger story, and we have to wait a while before we even get a glimpse of the next installment.

Still, Intergrade on PS5 has been a great way to hold players back until then. Along with an impressive visual and gameplay upgrade for FFVII Remake, Intergrade has also added a new PS5 exclusive story expansion focusing on FFVII’s quirky ninja, Yuffie, and her journey through Midgar. If you own a PS5 and still haven’t had a chance to check out Final Fantasy VII Remake, then check out Intergrade.

Sony/digital polyphony

No PlayStation generation is complete without a Gran Turismo game. While Xbox owners rightfully boasted access to the formidable Forza franchise, nine long years have passed since Gran Turismo 6 launched on PS4.

Gran Turismo 7 to the rescue. It’s exactly what fans of the franchise have come to expect: an accurate driving simulator that looks stunning. The game has drawn some criticism for its use of microtransactions, but if you’re a racing fan who can overlook some microtransaction malarkey, Gran Turismo is a no-brainer.

Sucker Punch

Another PS4 game revisit is the director’s cut for Ghost of Tsushima, an open-world samurai action game from the creators of the InFamous series. What makes the PS5 edition a clear upgrade over the original is that in addition to having the Iki Island expansion, which adds over 5 hours of new story content, it also gave the base game a substantial performance boost.

With improved technical buffs adding increased frame rate, faster loading, and running at native 4K resolution, this Enhanced Edition makes Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut on PS5 the definitive way to experience open-world gaming visually. stunning and carefully crafted from developer Sucker Punch Productions.

Sony computer entertainment

Uncharitably, Astro’s Playroom is a glorified tech demo. Charitably speaking, it is a glorious tech demo.

Designed to show off what the PlayStation 5’s Dual Sense controller can do, Astro’s Playroom comes free with the PlayStation 5. The “free tech demo” doesn’t scream “must-play,” but Astro’s Playroom has been widely praised for being Packed with clever homages to previous PlayStation games and, most importantly, fun to play.

Astro’s Playroom isn’t trying to hide the fact that it’s an excuse to show you what a gamepad can do. But it conjures up a world you’ll want to see and explore, as GameSpot’s Mike Epstein wrote upon release.

house mark

The past few years have seen an unusual amount of games set in a time loop, and the PS5-exclusive return is one of the weirdest.

Blending fast-paced third-person action gameplay with the unpredictability of random role-playing, Returnal has its protagonist Selene traveling through an alien planet filled with hostile creatures and enigmatic artifacts detailing a cataclysmic event – and it all comes together. connect to it. Its plot feels like a carefully calculated mix of films like Prometheus and Edge of Tomorrow, but Returnal’s story and presentation give it a flavor of its own.

Running and shooting through Returnal’s many ruins with bizarre alien weaponry delivers some of the most satisfying and exciting shooters of the year, beckoning you to step into just one more loop across the planet.

From software

One of the most obvious trends of the past 10 years has been the increase in super hard Game. Much of this is attributed to the success of Dark Souls, from FromSoftware, which was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011. But Dark Souls itself was a spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls, a much-loved game from FromSoftware which was launched in 2009. .

And now Demon’s Souls is getting a second life on the PlayStation 5, as it’s arguably the best game on the platform. It has a 92 rating on Metacritic and a 9 out of 10 from GameSpot. He was credited for faithfully remaking the 2009 classic, but improving it with better movement and modernizing it with graphics that show off what the PS5 can do.

In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a 2017 Spider-Man expansion, you can carry a backpack in which a little cat wearing a Spider-Man mask appears and attacks your enemies.

We don’t think we need to develop further.

Annapurna Interactive

A third-person action game concerned almost primarily with flow and movement, The Pathless is a joy to play every second you have the controller in your hand.

It’s available on other platforms, including the iPad, but I’d say it’s best played on a current-gen console like the PS5, where the visuals and frame rate reflect the finesse of game design.

You can read our full review here.

Interactive OI

Hitman 3 wraps up the rebooted Hitman trilogy, which began with 2016’s self-titled title, and does so with a bang. Hitman 3 received a 9/10 from CNET’s sister site GameSpot thanks to its excellent level design, enhanced story, and replayability. This last attribute is the key. Hitman might be about assassinations, but it’s more of a puzzle game than an action game, and you’ll have to play through each level over and over again to see all the creative ways Agent 47 can do without. mean guys.

The game is available on PS4 and PS5, among other consoles, but the PS5 version offers 4K gameplay, 60 frames per second, and improved haptic feedback thanks to the DualSense controller.

Screenshot of Oscar Gonzalez

It’s a bit of a “duh” inclusion, but we can’t not include Elden Ring. It’s one of the most ambitious RPG games ever made and probably has the most immersive world of any game that doesn’t have “Breath of the Wild” in the title.

Admittedly, Elden Ring is not for everyone. It’s really hard and it’s really long. But if you have 100 hours to invest, over a few weeks or a few months, it will give you one of the best gaming experiences you can have on any console right now.