I’ve been gaming for over 20 years. And I’ll be real with you — there aren’t many moments when a game makes me literally stand up and go “wait, WHAT?”
Last month? It happened twice.
The PS5 has been out for a while now, and we’ve all moved past the whole “there are no games” joke. The real problem now? There are too many games and not enough time. So I did the crazy thing — I played everything worth playing on PS5 and put this list together.
This isn’t the 16 “highest rated” games. It’s not some metacritic copy-paste either.
These are 16 games that remind you why you fell in love with gaming in the first place. Some will make you smile like an idiot. Some will make you rage. And at least one will make you feel something you didn’t expect.
Let’s get into it.
1. Astro Bot
You know that feeling when you boot up a new console for the first time? That pure, childlike excitement where everything feels magical?
Astro Bot turns that feeling into an entire game.
And I don’t mean that in a cheesy way. I mean every single level is packed with so much creativity that you’ll catch yourself grinning like a complete idiot. One minute you’re shrinking down to mouse size. Next minute you’re inflating into a balloon and floating through the clouds. Then you’re riding a giant robot crab through a beach level and you didn’t even question it.
The DualSense controller becomes part of the game in ways that still blow my mind. You feel raindrops hit the controller. You feel different textures under Astro’s tiny feet. The adaptive triggers make you actually work when you pull objects — your fingers feel resistance like it’s real.
But here’s what really gets me — the nostalgia hits.
The game makes you rescue little bots dressed as Nathan Drake, Kratos, Aloy, and dozens of other PlayStation legends. Each one has tiny animations that perfectly capture that character. Kratos bot does the rage face. Drake bot does the casual shoulder lean. It’s ridiculous and I love every bit of it.
Some people call this a “kids’ game” or a “tech demo.”
Those people are wrong.
Astro Bot is pure, concentrated fun. If you own a PS5 and haven’t played it — fix that today. Not tomorrow. Today.
2. Demon’s Souls
Alright. Time to talk about pain.
Beautiful, stunning, gorgeous pain.
Demon’s Souls on PS5 isn’t just a remake — it’s a full rebirth. Bluepoint Games took FromSoftware’s brutal classic and made it look like it crawled out of your darkest nightmare. And I mean that as a compliment.
The Tower of Latria still makes my skin crawl. Those mind flayers lurking in the dark. Those creepy bell sounds echoing through the halls. Boletaria feels like it’s rotting in real time — every brick, every corpse rendered in perfect, horrible detail.
The DualSense goes crazy here too. You feel steel clashing when you block. You feel tension when you draw your bow. Every hit lands with real weight.
Then there are the bosses.
The Flamelurker? He’s not just tough — he’s terrifying. A walking furnace of pure rage that doesn’t stop. Ever.
The Tower Knight? First time you see him, you’ll feel genuinely small. Like a bug about to get stomped.
This game does not hold your hand. It doesn’t even know you have hands. You’ll die a lot. You’ll lose two hours worth of progress because you got greedy near a cliff edge. You’ll stare at your screen and question your life choices.
But when you finally beat that boss that’s been wrecking you all night — when you earn it — nothing else in gaming comes close to that feeling.
Fair warning: Demon’s Souls will change you. You’ll either get addicted to the punishment, or you’ll rage quit and never come back. There’s no in-between.
3. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Web-swinging through New York has never felt this good. And I don’t say that lightly — the first two games already had incredible movement. Insomniac somehow made it better.
Now you’ve got web wings that let you glide across skyscrapers. Switching between Peter and Miles mid-mission feels totally smooth — like changing songs on a playlist. No weird cuts, no jarring transitions. Just flow.
The story hits harder than you’d expect too.
Watching Peter slowly lose himself to the symbiote while Miles tries to keep everything together — there’s real emotional tension there. It doesn’t feel like a superhero movie going through the motions. It feels like two people who genuinely care about each other, pulling in different directions.
Kraven isn’t just some random villain either. Every encounter with him feels like a life-or-death situation. His presence alone makes you feel like the stakes are real.
Combat is where it gets really fun. Peter’s symbiote moves are brutal. Those black tendrils throw enemies around like they weigh nothing. Miles’s evolved Venom powers make you feel like you’re basically a god made of electricity. Switching between their styles keeps things fresh — even 30 hours in.
And the small human moments hit different too. Helping a kid find his grandpa in Queens. Side quests that actually connect to the main story. Civilians reacting differently depending on whether you’re Peter or Miles.
Coney Island. That’s all I’ll say. Just Coney Island.
4. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
This game shouldn’t be possible. I mean that literally.
The way you zip between two completely different worlds — instantly, with zero loading screen — while explosions and particles are going crazy everywhere? It’s basically magic. I still don’t fully understand how it works.
Insomniac built this as a PS5 showcase, and they absolutely delivered. But beyond the technical stuff, Rift Apart is just pure fun. Remember when games were allowed to be colorful and silly and not take themselves too seriously? This game is exactly that.
You’ve got a gun that turns enemies into garden plants. Another that fires ricocheting buzzsaws. There’s one called the Topiary Sprinkler that turns bad guys into harmless little shrubs.
Yes. It’s ridiculous. I love it.
Rivet — the new character — is a fantastic addition. She’s not just “female Ratchet.” She has her own fears, her own story, and an emotional arc that makes you actually care about a cartoon space fox. Kit’s story hits surprisingly hard too.
The Pixar comparison people always make? Totally fair. This game looks better than most animated movies. Every world is packed with detail — from a neon-lit cyberpunk nightclub to a pirate dimension with gorgeous water reflections.
Your jaw will drop at least once per level. Guaranteed.
5. Returnal
Returnal is what happens when you give a studio a massive budget and tell them to do whatever they want. And what they wanted was apparently to break you mentally. In the best way.
This game isn’t just hard — it’s hostile. Actively hostile to your existence.
You play as Selene, a lone astronaut stuck in a time loop on an alien planet that literally rearranges itself every time you die. And you will die. The planet changes. Your weapons change. Everything resets.
But here’s the thing — dying is the whole point.
Every death teaches you something. Every run takes you a little further. Slowly you start to understand the systems, and piece by piece you uncover what’s actually happening to Selene. The story unfolds through creepy audio logs, weird house sequences that mess with your head, and environmental storytelling that trusts you to connect the dots yourself.
The combat is silky smooth. You’re dodging through bullet hell patterns while firing alien weapons that feel genuinely strange and wonderful. The Hollowseeker with its portal rounds. The Electropylon Driver that creates a web of instant death. These aren’t normal video game guns — they’re bizarre and beautiful.
Play this one with headphones. At night. The 3D audio will have you hearing enemies above, behind, and around you — and you’ll start questioning every sound in your actual house.
That third act? Just when you think you’ve figured everything out, the game rips the rug out completely. I sat staring at my screen for a full five minutes.
Returnal isn’t for everyone. But if it clicks for you — if you embrace the loop — it becomes one of the most unique gaming experiences out there.
6. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
If you played the original Final Fantasy VII back in the day, Rebirth is going to hit you like a truck.
If you never played it — that’s fine too. This thing stands completely on its own.
After being stuck inside Midgar for all of Remake, Rebirth finally opens up the world. And wow, does it open up. Massive regions, each one feeling totally different from the last. Grasslands, deserts, jungles, coastal towns — the variety never stops.
The combat evolved too. Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and the rest of the crew all have their own fighting styles, and mixing their abilities together in battle feels like cracking a really satisfying puzzle. You’re not just button-mashing — you’re thinking.
Then there’s all the side stuff. Chocobo Racing. A card game called Queen’s Blood that I spent embarrassing amounts of time on. Side quests that actually add something to the story instead of just being filler.
The main story is full of twists that will genuinely shock you — even if you know the original. The game does its own thing with the story in ways that feel bold rather than lazy.
Easily 100+ hours of content. And almost none of it feels wasted.
7. Helldivers 2
Imagine Starship Troopers meets Left 4 Dead, then someone cranked the chaos dial all the way up and snapped it off. That’s Helldivers 2.
Every mission drops you and up to three friends into a warzone against either bugs or robots — and the game does not go easy on you. You’re calling in airstrikes, manning turrets, and screaming at your teammates to fall back while something the size of a building chases you across an open field.
The catch? Friendly fire is always on. Always. So those airstrikes? They will kill you if you’re not careful. And your friends will absolutely not be careful.
The satire running through the whole game is brilliant too. Your ship cheerfully announces your squad’s sacrifices over the intercom like it’s reading a morning weather report. You’re dying for “democracy” and the game plays it completely straight while winking at you the whole time.
This is multiplayer done right. Not the kind that feels like a second job. The kind where you’re laughing and yelling and playing one more mission at 2am without even realizing it.
8. Stellar Blade
Stellar Blade came out of nowhere and absolutely slapped.
The combat is the main attraction — and it’s tight. We’re talking Sekiro-style parrying mixed with stylish combos that feel closer to Bayonetta. Getting the timing down on a perfect parry and then going to town on a boss is one of the best feelings in any recent action game.
The bosses are multi-phase spectacles that actually test you. They’re not just damage sponges — they have patterns, they adapt, and they punish you for getting sloppy. In a good way.
The world is hauntingly detailed — a ruined Earth that feels genuinely eerie to explore. The synth-and-metal soundtrack fits every fight perfectly, ramping up intensity at exactly the right moments.
It’s a game that rewards patience and skill over button mashing. If you like action games with real depth to them, Stellar Blade is a must.
9. Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the kind of RPG that makes every other RPG feel a little lazy by comparison. And I say that with love for other RPGs.
The freedom here is almost overwhelming at first. You can talk your way out of almost any situation. You can set things on fire, freeze them, electrify them, push enemies off cliffs, and combine spells in ways the game never explicitly tells you are possible. You just try something and it works.
Your party members aren’t just stat blocks — they’re fully built characters with their own goals, fears, and storylines. Astarion is a sarcastic vampire who’s a lot more complicated than he first seems. Shadowheart is hiding something big. Gale might literally explode. Every companion has a full arc that plays out based on your choices.
And your choices genuinely matter. Not in the fake “this will affect your journey” way that most games use. In the actual “this decision changed the next 20 hours of my game” way.
Give it 10 hours before you judge it. Once it clicks, it really clicks.
10. Control: Ultimate Edition
Control is weird. And I mean that in the best possible way.
You play as Jesse Faden, the new director of a secret government agency whose headquarters is actively fighting back against everyone inside it. The building shifts. The walls move. Strange objects are classified as weapons. The whole vibe is somewhere between The X-Files and a fever dream.
Your main weapon shape-shifts between different forms — sniper, shotgun, machine gun — and you pair it with telekinetic powers that let you hurl office furniture at anything that moves. It sounds chaotic. It is chaotic. It’s also brilliant.
The PS5 version runs at a buttery 60fps, which makes the combat feel incredible. The audio design is equally wild — environmental sounds that put you on edge long before anything actually jumps out.
The Foundation DLC expands the lore, and the Alan Wake crossover connects it to a larger universe that’s quietly becoming one of gaming’s most interesting shared worlds.
Control trusts your intelligence. It doesn’t hold your hand. It drops you into something strange and expects you to figure it out. That alone makes it stand out.
11. Resident Evil 4 Remake
The original Resident Evil 4 is one of the most important games ever made. No exaggeration.
Capcom somehow took that legacy and made it better.
Leon feels sharper and more grounded. Ashley — who was genuinely annoying in the original — actually has personality now. Luis, who barely had any screen time before, finally gets the arc he deserved. The story beats are the same, but the writing is miles better.
The DualSense goes hard here too. The adaptive triggers give every shot real weight — you can feel the difference between a pistol and a shotgun in your fingers. Chainsaw encounters make the controller go absolutely nuts in a way that’s equal parts immersive and terrifying.
Capcom also expanded areas, added new bosses, and filled in side content that gives the world more depth without messing with what made the original great.
If you’ve played the original — this is worth revisiting. If you haven’t — this is the perfect place to start.
12. Street Fighter 6
Fighting games have a reputation for being hard to get into. Street Fighter 6 looked at that reputation and decided to ignore it completely.
The new World Tour mode is basically a full single-player RPG where you wander a city, train under Street Fighter legends, and build your own custom character. It plays like a mini Yakuza game and it’s way more fun than it has any right to be.
The Drive System added to multiplayer matches keeps every round tense. Using it smartly opens up combo opportunities. Burning it out leaves you vulnerable. It’s simple to understand but deep enough that you’ll still be learning things after dozens of hours.
The presentation is full of personality — every fighter has style, the music slaps, and matches just feel good to play. The rollback netcode means online fights run smoothly even with bad connections.
It’s the most fun Street Fighter has ever been. And it’s actually welcoming to new players, which is not something this series could say before.
13. Gran Turismo 7
Gran Turismo 7 isn’t trying to be fast and flashy. It’s trying to make you feel something about cars.
And it works.
The driving physics are genuinely impressive — each car handles differently, weather changes how the track feels under your tires, and the DualSense feedback gives you information through your hands that helps you brake and corner better. It’s not just cosmetic rumble. It’s actually useful.
The Café Mode is a brilliant idea — instead of just handing you cars as rewards, it tells you their history. You learn why certain models matter, what era they came from, what made them special. It turns a racing game into something almost educational without feeling like homework.
Scapes Mode lets you photograph your cars in real-world locations with genuinely stunning results.
If cars mean anything to you at all — even a little — Gran Turismo 7 will make you feel something.
14. God of War Ragnarök
Following up God of War 2018 was an almost impossible task. That game was so good that anything less than perfect was going to disappoint people.
Ragnarök didn’t disappoint.
The father-son dynamic between Kratos and Atreus hits harder than ever here because Atreus is older now — he has his own opinions, his own agenda, and he’s starting to push back. Watching Kratos navigate that while also trying to stop the literal apocalypse is genuinely emotional in a way you don’t expect from a game where you fight Norse gods.
The combat is deeper than the first game. Every fight feels like a controlled storm — heavy, tactical, and fluid at the same time. The Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos both get new moves, and the companion combat is actually useful now rather than just decorative.
The worlds are bigger, the boss fights are more spectacular, and the ending lands exactly where it needs to.
This is a complete journey. Start with the 2018 game if you haven’t, then come straight here.
15. Horizon Forbidden West
The original Horizon Zero Dawn introduced one of the most interesting sci-fi worlds in gaming — a lush post-apocalyptic Earth where robotic dinosaurs roam and humanity has forgotten almost everything about the old world.
Forbidden West takes that world and makes it bigger, weirder, and more dangerous.
The machines here are nastier and more varied. Aloy has new tools — she can swim underwater now, climb almost anything, and use a glider to get across the massive open world without it feeling like a chore. The new weapons and traps give you way more creative options in combat.
The story gets more complex too, pulling back the curtain further on what actually happened to the world and who’s really pulling the strings.
Exploration feels genuinely rewarding here — stumbling into a new area almost always leads to something interesting, whether it’s a new machine type, a hidden ruin, or a side quest that adds real texture to the world.
If you liked Zero Dawn, Forbidden West is bigger and better in almost every way.
16. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition
Let’s address the obvious: yes, this game launched as a mess. Yes, it was embarrassing. Yes, people are still salty about it.
And also: the version on PS5 right now is one of the best open-world games ever made.
Night City is alive in a way most open worlds aren’t. It has layers — street level chaos, elevated highways, underground clubs, corporate towers. The vertical density makes it feel like a real place rather than a flat map with icons on it.
The Phantom Liberty DLC turned things up another level. It adds a spy-thriller storyline with new characters, new areas, and story beats that genuinely surprised me. Idris Elba’s character alone is worth the price of entry.
Your build choices actually matter. You can go full stealth netrunner and hack everything without firing a shot. Or full-on gun-toting street samurai. Or somewhere in between. Every playstyle feels complete rather than like you’re missing out.
The fast loading on PS5 means you’re never waiting. The 3D audio makes Night City sound as dense as it looks.
Whatever you thought of Cyberpunk 2077 at launch — give it another look. It earned the redemption.
The Honest TL;DR
Half of you will think this list is perfect. The other half will have strong opinions about what I missed or ranked wrong.
Both reactions are correct — and that’s what makes gaming worth caring about. The game that changed your life might not be on here, and that’s fine. This list isn’t gospel. It’s just 16 games that genuinely delivered.
Pick one. Start tonight. You won’t regret it.
