The post The best PS5 games for 2024: Top PlayStation titles to play right now appeared first on Best News.
]]> Quick Overview
Stray
$22 at Amazon$40 at Best Buy$30 at Books-A-Million (BAM!)See more optionsMore options
Dead Space
$43 at Amazon$45 at Walmart$70 at HSNSee more options
Elden Ring
$50 at Amazon$50 at Best Buy$63 at NeweggSee more options
Gran Turismo 7
$43 at Amazon$70 at HSN$70 at Best BuySee more options
God of War Ragnarök
$69 at Walmart$74 at AmazonSee more options
The Last of Us
$46 at Walmart$55 at Amazon$70 at HSNSee more options
Rollerdrome
Overwatch 2
Astro’s Playroom
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Demon’s Souls
$50 at Amazon$70 at Best Buy$43 at NeweggSee more options
God of War
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut
Deathloop
$25 at Amazon$70 at HSN$40 at Books-A-Million (BAM!)See more options
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
$32 at Amazon$50 at Best BuySee more options
Resident Evil Village
$20 at Amazon$25 at Walmart$35 at HSNSee more options
Returnal
$49 at Adorama$52 at Walmart$70 at HSNSee more options
Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
$42 at Amazon$46 at Walmart$60 at Books-A-Million (BAM!)See more optionsSee 13 more
Stray
Stray a perfectly contained adventure game that has you embodying a cat in a post-apocalyptic world humans have left behind. It has plenty of fresh ideas, each one pared down to its purest form. Plenty of actions in Stray exist simply because they make sense for a cat protagonist (and probably because they’re cute as hell). There’s a discrete button to meow, and the robots the cat shares its world with react with shock and frustration when you cut across their board game, throwing pieces to the floor. It’s possible to curl up and sleep basically any time, anywhere – even directly on top of a robot stranger. When the cat gets pets and cuddles from the robots, it purrs and the DualSense’s haptics fire up in response. The environmental puzzles take advantage of this cat-level perspective, inviting players to look at the world with different, light-reflective eyes.
As well as puzzle-solving, ledge-leaping and blob-dodging, Stray introduces a world of lighthearted dystopia, where robots don’t hate the humans that came before them. Instead, they attempt to cultivate plants that can survive in the dark, just because people would have liked that. Compared with most dystopian cyberpunk games, Stray is downright joyful and one of the best PlayStation 5 games you can get.
$22 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$40 at Best Buy$30 at Books-A-Million (BAM!)Electronic Arts
Dead Space
Read our full review of Dead Space
TheDead Space remake feels like a warm, juicy hug from a murderous necromorph, and we mean that in the best way possible. The latest version of Dead Space spit-shines the mechanics that made the original game so magically horrific back in 2008, and it doesn’t add any unnecessary, modern bloat. The remake features full voice acting, new puzzles and expanded storylines, and it introduces a zero-gravity ability that allows the protagonist, Isaac Clarke, to fly through sections of the game in an ultra-satisfying way.
None of these additions outshine the game’s core loop: stasis, shoot, stomp. Isaac gains the ability to temporarily freeze enemies and he picks up a variety of weapons, but he never feels overpowered; he’s always in danger. Mutilated corpse monsters appear suddenly in the cramped corridors of the space station, charging at Isaac from the shadows, limbs akimbo and begging to be shot off. The first Dead Space popularized the idea that headshots don’t matter and the remake stays true to this ethos – yet its combat rhythm still feels fresh.
$43 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$45 at Walmart$70 at HSN
Elden Ring
Did you think this list of best PlayStation 5 games would not include Elden Ring? The strengths of FromSoftware’s latest action-RPG are many, but what’s most impressive about the game is how hand-crafted it feels despite its scale. Elden Ring is big, but it never feels like it’s wasting your time. Far from it; FromSoftware has created a rich open world, with something surprising, delightful or utterly terrifying around every corner. I’ll never forget the moment I found a chest that teleported my character to a cave full of Eldritch monsters. Elden Ring is full of those kinds of discoveries.
And if you’re worried about hitting a brick wall with Elden Ring’s difficulty, don’t be. Sure, it can be tough as nails, but it’s also From’s most accessible game to date as well. If you find combat overly punishing, go for a mage build and blast your enemies from afar. And if all else fails, one of the rewards for exploring Elden Ring’s world is experience that you can use to make your character stronger.
$50 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$50 at Best Buy$63 at Newegg
Gran Turismo 7
If you enjoy sim-style racing games, Gran Turismo 7 is the PS5’s only real choice. The main tenets that’ve made Gran Turismo a gaming staple are still here: a handling and physics model that demands precision but isn’t so realistic that you need a wheel or intense skill to play; the intensity of learning how a specific car meshes with a specific track; truly stunning visuals; that odd mix of rock, jazz and orchestral music in the soundtrack. Most of all, there remains a deep love of the automobile, from sexy speed demons to unwieldy boxes from years ago. More than this, Gran Turismo 7 is romantic about cars, not just for how they look, but how they represent years of collective labor and passion. There’s a singular style and voice here that just doesn’t exist in most sports games.
There was lots of anger around Gran Turismo 7’s microtransactions, amount of content and event payouts around launch – just look at that Metacritic user score – and the fact that it’s effectively always-online is still a major detraction. But if you’re starting today, you’ll have hundreds of hours of things to do, and you shouldn’t feel the need to grind for credits until far down the road. And that’s assuming you aren’t interested in racing against other players online, which is where the game should be most lively for years to come.
$43 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$70 at HSN$70 at Best Buy
God of War Ragnarök
2018’s God of War was a brilliant reinvention for a franchise that was in desperate need of a reboot. For an encore, all Sony’s Santa Monica Studio did was every single stake they could. God of War Ragnarök is a massive adventure, taking protagonist Kratos and his son Atreus all over the nine Norse realms as they prepare for Ragnarök, a mythical event essentially meant to bring about the end of the world. Along the way, Kratos and Atreus get up close and personal with even more of the Norse gods, including stunning encounters with the drunken but deadly Thor and, of course, Odin himself.
The combat in Ragnarök remains one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I can think of – it’s fluid and extremely customizable. And once you get into a groove and power up Kratos, it’s truly a god-like experience. There’s also a much greater variety of enemies this time out, from the smaller grunts you mow through to bigger and more intense boss battles. There are more realms to visit, more sidequests than ever and an endgame sequence that’s up there with the biggest battles any God of War game has ever put to screen. The backdrop for all this is some of the most beautifully detailed and varied environments you can find, from the swampy confines of Vanaheim and the fiery to the frozen tundra of Midgard. On the PS5, you can choose between native 4K visuals or high frame rates up to 120Hz, provided your TV can handle it.
$69 at WalmartExplore More Buying Options$74 at Amazon
The Last of Us
Read our full review of The Last of Us
The Last of Us and its sequel may have originally come out for the PS3 and PS4, respectively, but they also provide two excellent PS5 experiences. The Last of Us Part I is a complete visual remake for the PS5 of the 2013 original, with massively improved character models and environments, along with native 4K visuals or frame rates up to 120 fps. The Last of Us Part II originally launched for the PS4 in 2020, and developer Naughty Dog released a patch for it last year unlocking 60 fps gameplay on the PS5. There weren’t any other major updates, but the game already looked amazing on the PS4 so there wasn’t a ton to change here. Either way, the PS5 is the best place to experience these two games.
Both games feature a sprawling post-pandemic adventure story, following survivors Joel and Ellie through a gorgeously rendered but terrifying world where zombie-like Infected and regular humans alike are out for your blood. You’ll never really feel like you have enough supplies to survive, so you need to make every shot count – or figure out how to sneak around enemies or craft tools that’ll get you out of tight spots. There’s an ever-present sense of danger in these games, while the stories focus on human connection in all its messy glory; the tone is often extremely grim, but there are moments of levity, humor and hope sprinkled throughout the ruined world. The Last of Us Part I and Part II both put you through an intense, violent and emotional experience, but they remain a journey worth taking.
$46 at WalmartExplore More Buying Options$55 at Amazon$70 at HSNSony
Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome is lush. It’s incredibly stylish, taking cues from 1970s Hollywood sci-fi but with an attractive cel-shaded filter over every scene. Even better than its stunning visuals, Rollerdrome has smooth, precise mechanics that allow players to fall into a flow in every level. The game is all about gliding through the environments on rollerblades, picking up speed and doing tricks while dodging and shooting enemies, managing weapons and controlling time – and it all comes together in a thrilling dystopian bloodsport.
It’s a joy to dodge, dodge, dodge and then leap into the air, slow down time and take out the people shooting at you, refilling ammo and collecting health in the process. Meanwhile, an unsettling story of corporate greed unfolds naturally beneath the rollerblading bloodshed, keeping the stakes high. Rollerdrome was a sleeper hit of 2022, so if you’ve been napping on this one, now’s the time to wake up and play.
$30 at PlayStationBlizzard
Overwatch 2
Even though Blizzard has improved the onramp for new players this time around, Overwatch 2 still has a steep learning curve. Stick with it, though, and you’ll get to indulge in perhaps the best team shooter around. To the untrained eye, matches may seem like colorful chaos, but Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win.
It’s much more complex in practice. Blizzard reduced the number of players on each team from six to five. That, along with across-the-board character tweaks, has made gameplay faster-paced and more enjoyable compared with the original Overwatch. There’s a greater emphasis on individual impact, but you’ll still need to work well with your teammates to secure a victory.
Now featuring a cast of more than 30 heroes, each with distinct abilities and playstyles, you’ll surely find a few Overwatch 2 characters that you can connect with. The first batch of new heroes are all a blast to play. There are many great (though often fairly expensive) new skins to kit them out with too. The game looks and sounds terrific too, thanks to Blizzard’s trademark level of polish. At least until you figure out how to play Overwatch 2, you can marvel at how good it looks.
$0 at OverwatchSony
Astro’s Playroom
It’s odd to start a best games list with a title that comes free with the console, but if you’re anything like my son, who swiftly deleted Astro’s Playroom to make space for various Call of Duty titles, I’m here to tell you to give the pack-in title another shot. Astro’s Playroom is a love letter to both 3D platformers and the PlayStation itself. It’s also, to date, the title that makes the best use of Sony’s DualSense controller, with incredible haptic feedback and clever usage of the pad’s adaptive triggers. (Although, eight years on, I’m still not convinced anyone has found a compelling reason for that touch pad.) It’s a game that even completionists can finish within six hours or so, but those six hours were among the most fun I’ve had with the PS5 so far.
$0 at PlayStation
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
We thought it would never happen. Final Fantasy VII was an iconic JRPG that’s credited with opening up the genre to the west. It peppered the Top 10 lists of the best games of all-time and introduced the long-running Japanese RPG series to polygons, 3D maps, and countless other innovations of 32-bit consoles. 23 years later, and three PlayStation iterations later, Square Enix dared to remake, not remaster, the game. It would be, contentiously, episodic, expanding out the story of Midgar and the opening part of the game into a single game.
It’s all very different. It’s also gorgeous, with a modern battle system that no longer focuses on static characters and menu choices. Somehow, and we were ready to be underwhelmed, the battle system works. FF7R’s fights are slicker and more enjoyable than those in Final Fantasy XV, the latest entry in the series. Each character, from iconic mercenary Cloud through to eco-terrorist Barret and flower girl Aerith, play in entirely different ways, using the space between themselves and enemies in very different ways. Some sub-missions and distractions feel like they’re there solely to eke some more hours out of your playthrough, but the world of the original has been thoughtfully reimagined, so it’s a minor complaint.
For anyone that bought the PS4 iteration, the upgrade to PS5 is free. However, it costs money to gain access to the PS5-exclusive DLC chapter featuring ninja Yuffie. Offering another battle style to experiment with and master, two new extra chapters run alongside the events of the first installment of this remake. Moments of the game feel like they were built to tease how capable the newest PlayStation is, with Yuffie zipping down poles through vertiginous levels, wall-running and mixing up long-range and short-range attacks in a completely different way to Cloud, Aerith and the rest.
$47 at AmazonPlaystation
Demon’s Souls
Bluepoint’s Demon’s Souls remake won’t be for everyone — no Souls game is. The original Demon’s Souls was a sleeper hit in 2009 on the PS3, establishing the basic formula that would later be cemented with Dark Souls, and then aped by an entire industry to the point where we now essentially have a “Soulslike” genre. Today, that means challenging difficulty, grinding enemies for souls to level up, the retrieval of your corpse to collect said souls, a labyrinthine map to explore and, if you’re doing Soulslike right, some show-stopping boss fights to contend with. As a progenitor to the genre, Demon’s Souls has most of those in abundance. But rather than a huge sprawling map, it uses a portal system, with mini labyrinths to work through. Its bosses are also not quite on the level of impressiveness or difficulty of a more modern Dark Souls game.
Bluepoint has been faithful to the original, then, but graphically Demon’s Souls is a true showcase of what the PS5 can do, with gorgeous high-resolution visuals, smooth frame rates and swift loading. While the graphics certainly catch your eye, it’s the smoothness and loading times that are the most impactful. The original ran at 720p, and… depending on what you were doing 25 to 30 fps, while the remake lets you pick between a locked 30 or 60 fps at 4K or 1440p. And in a game that will likely kill you hundreds of times, waiting two seconds to respawn instead of thirty is transformative.
$50 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$70 at Best Buy$43 at NeweggSony
God of War
Sony’s God of War series had laid dormant for half a decade when its latest incarnation hit stores in early 2018, and for good reason. Antiquated gameplay and troubling themes had made it an ill-fit for the modern gaming landscape. No more. SIE Santa Monica Studio’s God of War manages to successfully reboot the series while turning the previous games’ narrative weaknesses into its strengths. Kratos is now a dad, the camera is now essentially strapped to his shoulder and Sony has what is sure to become a new series on its hands.
The first outright PS4 game on this collection, God of War has at least been patched for better performance on PS5, allowing it to output at 4K/60. For those subscribed to PS Plus, this one’s available for free as part of the PlayStation Plus Collection on PS5.
$20 at GameStop
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut
This tale of samurai vengeance is like Japanese cinema come to life. There are multiple betrayals, the sad deaths of several close allies, tense sword fights, villages and castles under siege, and even a ‘Kurosawa mode’ black-and-white filter you employ for the entire game. The world of feudal Japan, with some creative liberties, is gorgeous, with fields of grass and bullrushes to race through on your faithful steed, temple ‘puzzles’ to navigate around and fortresses to assess and attack.
As you make your way through the main story quest, and more than enough side quests and challenges, you unlock more powerful sword techniques and stances, as well as new weapons and forbidden techniques that are neatly woven in the story of a samurai pushed to the edge. It still suffers from one too many fetch quests, artifacts scattered across Japan’s prefectures, but the sheer beauty of Ghost of Tsushima tricks you into believing this is the greatest open-world game on PlayStation. Don’t get me wrong — it’s up there.
With the new Director’s Cut edition on the PS5, you also get dynamic frame-rates up to 60 FPS, ensuring the game looks and feels even more like a tribute to Japanese cinematic auteurs of the past. There are also DualSense tricks, like a bow that tangibly tightens as you pull on trigger buttons, and subtle rumble as you ride across the lands of Tsushima, Director’s Cut adds a new, surprisingly compelling DLC chapter. As you explore the Iki isle, the game adds a few more tricks to Jin’s arsenal, and deepens the relationship and history between the game’s hero and his father.
Without spoiling what happens, the game smartly threads the original story into the DLC, ensuring it feels solidly connected to the main game, despite DLC status.
$76 at Amazon
Deathloop
Deathloop, from the studio that brought you the Dishonored series, is easy enough to explain: You’re trapped in a day that repeats itself. If you die, then you go back to the morning, to repeat the day again. If you last until the end of the day, you still repeat it again. Colt must “break the loop” by efficiently murdering seven main characters, who are inconveniently are never in the same place at the same time. It’s also stylish, accessible and fun.
While you try to figure out your escape from this time anomaly, you’ll also be hunted down by Julianna, another island resident who, like you, is able to remember everything that happens in each loop. She’ll also lock you out of escaping an area, and generally interfere with your plans to escape the time loop. (The online multiplayer is also addictive, flipping the roles around. You play as Julianna, hunting down Colt and foiling his plans for murder. )
As you play through the areas again (and again) you’ll equip yourself with slabs that add supernatural powers, as well as more potent weapons and trinkets to embed into both guns and yourself. It’s through this that you’re able to customize your playstyle or equip yourself in the best way to survive Julianna and nail that assassination. Each time period and area rewards repeat exploration, with secret guns, hidden conversations with NPCs and lots of world-building lore to discover for yourself.
$25 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$70 at HSN$40 at Books-A-Million (BAM!)
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Read our full review of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Finally, you don’t have to pick up Spider-Man 2 on the GameCube to get your web-slinging fix anymore. For almost 15 years, that game was held as the gold standard for a Spider-Man game, and I’ll let you into a secret: It wasn’t actually that good. Marvel’s Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a tour de force. Featuring the best representation of what it’s like to swing through New York City, well, ever, Insomniac’s PlayStation exclusive also borrows liberally from the Batman: Arkham series’ combat and throws in a story that, although it takes a while to get going, ends up in a jaw-dropping place.
With the launch of the PS5, Insomniac released a Miles Morales spin-off game, which follows the eponymous character as he attempts to protect NYC in Peter Parker’s absence. Both parts are available packaged together as Spider-Man Ultimate Edition— it has a longer name than that but let’s not — and benefit from improved framerates, resolution and ray tracing (although not necessarily all at the same time!) With the full graphical package enabled, you’ll be playing at 30 frames per second in 4K, or you can pick between a pair of performance options: 4K/60 with no ray tracing, or 1080p/60 with ray-tracing. Whatever mode you pick, you’ll benefit from loading times that finally make the game’s fast travel system… fast.
$32 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$50 at Best Buy
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is delightful. It’s a gothic fairy tale masquerading as a survival-horror game, and while this represents a fresh vibe for the franchise, it’s not an unwelcome evolution. The characters and enemies in Village are full of life — even when they’re decidedly undead — and Capcom has put a delicious twist on the idea of vampires, werewolves, sea creatures, giants and creepy dolls. The game retains its horror, puzzle and action roots, and it has Umbrella Corporation’s fingerprints all over it. On PS5, the game is gorgeous and it plays nicely with the DualSense controller, adding haptic feedback to weapons and terrifying situations alike. It simply feels like developers had fun with this one, and so will you.
$20 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$25 at Walmart$35 at HSN
Returnal
Read our full review of Returnal
Returnalis a third-person action game, a roguelite, a bullet-hell shooter and very hard, perhaps not in that order. The setup is basically that you’re stuck in a death loop, but you’re aware of it, and must learn the patterns and weaknesses of enemies — and master your own — in order to progress. As Devindra Hardwar explains, it leans heavily on the dark sci-fi of Alien, Edge of Tomorrow and Event Horizon but makes something new and unique in the process.
It’s made by the team behind Resogun, Nex Machina and Super Stardust HD, and you can tell, for better or worse. As you’d expect from a team that’s spent the past decades making shooters, the movement, gunplay and enemy attack patterns are incredibly well tuned. But on the flipside, from a studio used to smaller productions, the complexity and ambition of Returnal leads to a lack of polish that some may find unacceptable in a $70 game. If you can look past that, there’s a hell of a game waiting for you here.
$49 at AdoramaExplore More Buying Options$52 at Walmart$70 at HSN
Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice isn’t just another Dark Souls game. FromSoftware’s samurai adventure is a departure from that well-established formula, replacing slow, weighty combat and gothic despair for stealth, grappling hooks and swift swordplay. Oh, and while it’s still a difficult game, it’s a lot more accessible than Souls games — you can even pause it! The result of all these changes is something that’s still instantly recognizable as a FromSoftware title, but it’s its own thing, and it’s very good. While the game has yet to receive a proper PS5 upgrade, the extra grunt of Sony’s next-gen console does allow the game to finally run at a locked 60fps — something the PS4 Pro couldn’t handle.
$42 at AmazonExplore More Buying Options$46 at Walmart$60 at Books-A-Million (BAM!)
The post The best PS5 games for 2024: Top PlayStation titles to play right now appeared first on Best News.
]]>The post The best PS5 games for 2023 appeared first on Best News.
]]> Quick Overview
Stray
Dead Space
Gran Turismo 7
$45 at AmazonSee more options
Elden Ring
$50 at Amazon$71 at WalmartSee more options
God of War Ragnarök
The Last of Us
Rollerdrome
Overwatch 2
Astro’s Playroom
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Demon’s Souls
God of War
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut
Deathloop
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition
Resident Evil Village
Returnal
Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
Stray
Stray
Stray a perfectly contained adventure game that has you embodying a cat in a post-apocalyptic world humans have left behind. It has plenty of fresh ideas, each one pared down to its purest form. Plenty of actions in Stray exist simply because they make sense for a cat protagonist (and probably because they’re cute as hell). There’s a discrete button to meow, and the robots the cat shares its world with react with shock and frustration when you cut across their board game, throwing pieces to the floor. It’s possible to curl up and sleep basically any time, anywhere – even directly on top of a robot stranger. When the cat gets pets and cuddles from the robots, it purrs and the DualSense’s haptics fire up in response. The environmental puzzles take advantage of this cat-level perspective, inviting players to look at the world with different, light-reflective eyes.
As well as puzzle-solving, ledge-leaping and blob-dodging, Stray introduces a world of lighthearted dystopia, where robots don’t hate the humans that came before them. Instead, they attempt to cultivate plants that can survive in the dark, just because people would have liked that. Compared with most dystopian cyberpunk games, Stray is downright joyful and one of the best PlayStation 5 games you can get.
Dead Space
Dead Space
TheDead Space remake feels like a warm, juicy hug from a murderous necromorph, and we mean that in the best way possible. The 2023 version of Dead Space spit-shines the mechanics that made the original game so magically horrific back in 2008, and it doesn’t add any unnecessary, modern bloat. The remake features full voice acting, new puzzles and expanded storylines, and it introduces a zero-gravity ability that allows the protagonist, Isaac Clarke, to fly through sections of the game in an ultra-satisfying way.
None of these additions outshine the game’s core loop: stasis, shoot, stomp. Isaac gains the ability to temporarily freeze enemies and he picks up a variety of weapons, but he never feels overpowered; he’s always in danger. Mutilated corpse monsters appear suddenly in the cramped corridors of the space station, charging at Isaac from the shadows, limbs akimbo and begging to be shot off. The first Dead Space popularized the idea that headshots don’t matter and the remake stays true to this ethos – yet its combat rhythm still feels fresh.
The 2023 version of Dead Space proves that innovative game design is timeless (and so are plasma cutters).
Gran Turismo 7
Gran Turismo 7
If you enjoy sim-style racing games, Gran Turismo 7 is the PS5’s only real choice. The main tenets that’ve made Gran Turismo a gaming staple are still here: a handling and physics model that demands precision but isn’t so realistic that you need a wheel or intense skill to play; the intensity of learning how a specific car meshes with a specific track; truly stunning visuals; that odd mix of rock, jazz and orchestral music in the soundtrack. Most of all, there remains a deep love of the automobile, from sexy speed demons to unwieldy boxes from years ago. More than this, Gran Turismo 7 is romantic about cars, not just for how they look, but how they represent years of collective labor and passion. There’s a singular style and voice here that just doesn’t exist in most sports games.
There was lots of anger around Gran Turismo 7’s microtransactions, amount of content and event payouts around launch – just look at that Metacritic user score – and the fact that it’s effectively always-online is still a major detraction. But if you’re starting today, you’ll have hundreds of hours of things to do, and you shouldn’t feel the need to grind for credits until far down the road. And that’s assuming you aren’t interested in racing against other players online, which is where the game should be most lively for years to come.
Elden Ring
Elden Ring
Did you think this list of best PlayStation 5 games would not include Elden Ring? The strengths of FromSoftware’s latest action-RPG are many, but what’s most impressive about the game is how hand-crafted it feels despite its scale. Elden Ring is big, but it never feels like it’s wasting your time. Far from it; FromSoftware has created a rich open world, with something surprising, delightful or utterly terrifying around every corner. I’ll never forget the moment I found a chest that teleported my character to a cave full of Eldritch monsters. Elden Ring is full of those kinds of discoveries.
And if you’re worried about hitting a brick wall with Elden Ring’s difficulty, don’t be. Sure, it can be tough as nails, but it’s also From’s most accessible game to date as well. If you find combat overly punishing, go for a mage build and blast your enemies from afar. And if all else fails, one of the rewards for exploring Elden Ring’s world is experience that you can use to make your character stronger.
God of War: Ragnarök
God of War Ragnarök
2018’s God of War was a brilliant reinvention for a franchise that was in desperate need of a reboot. For an encore, all Sony’s Santa Monica Studio did was every single stake they could. God of War Ragnarök is a massive adventure, taking protagonist Kratos and his son Atreus all over the nine Norse realms as they prepare for Ragnarök, a mythical event essentially meant to bring about the end of the world. Along the way, Kratos and Atreus get up close and personal with even more of the Norse gods, including stunning encounters with the drunken but deadly Thor and, of course, Odin himself.
The combat in Ragnarök remains one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I can think of – it’s fluid and extremely customizable. And once you get into a groove and power up Kratos, it’s truly a god-like experience. There’s also a much greater variety of enemies this time out, from the smaller grunts you mow through to bigger and more intense boss battles. There are more realms to visit, more sidequests than ever and an endgame sequence that’s up there with the biggest battles any God of War game has ever put to screen. The backdrop for all this is some of the most beautifully detailed and varied environments you can find, from the swampy confines of Vanaheim and the fiery to the frozen tundra of Midgard. On the PS5, you can choose between native 4K visuals or high frame rates up to 120Hz, provided your TV can handle it.
The Last of Us
The Last of Us
The Last of Us and its sequel may have originally come out for the PS3 and PS4, respectively, but they also provide two excellent PS5 experiences. The Last of Us Part I is a complete visual remake for the PS5 of the 2013 original, with massively improved character models and environments, along with native 4K visuals or frame rates up to 120 fps. The Last of Us Part II originally launched for the PS4 in 2020, and developer Naughty Dog released a patch for it last year unlocking 60 fps gameplay on the PS5. There weren’t any other major updates, but the game already looked amazing on the PS4 so there wasn’t a ton to change here. Either way, the PS5 is the best place to experience these two games.
Both games feature a sprawling post-pandemic adventure story, following survivors Joel and Ellie through a gorgeously rendered but terrifying world where zombie-like Infected and regular humans alike are out for your blood. You’ll never really feel like you have enough supplies to survive, so you need to make every shot count – or figure out how to sneak around enemies or craft tools that’ll get you out of tight spots. There’s an ever-present sense of danger in these games, while the stories focus on human connection in all its messy glory; the tone is often extremely grim, but there are moments of levity, humor and hope sprinkled throughout the ruined world. The Last of Us Part I and Part II both put you through an intense, violent and emotional experience, but they remain a journey worth taking.
Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome is lush. It’s incredibly stylish, taking cues from 1970s Hollywood sci-fi but with an attractive cel-shaded filter over every scene. Even better than its stunning visuals, Rollerdrome has smooth, precise mechanics that allow players to fall into a flow in every level. The game is all about gliding through the environments on rollerblades, picking up speed and doing tricks while dodging and shooting enemies, managing weapons and controlling time – and it all comes together in a thrilling dystopian bloodsport.
It’s a joy to dodge, dodge, dodge and then leap into the air, slow down time and take out the people shooting at you, refilling ammo and collecting health in the process. Meanwhile, an unsettling story of corporate greed unfolds naturally beneath the rollerblading bloodshed, keeping the stakes high. Rollerdrome was a sleeper hit of 2022, so if you’ve been napping on this one, now’s the time to wake up and play.
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2
Even though Blizzard has improved the onramp for new players this time around, Overwatch 2 still has a steep learning curve. Stick with it, though, and you’ll get to indulge in perhaps the best team shooter around. To the untrained eye, matches may seem like colorful chaos, but Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win.
It’s much more complex in practice. Blizzard reduced the number of players on each team from six to five. That, along with across-the-board character tweaks, has made gameplay faster-paced and more enjoyable compared with the original Overwatch. There's a greater emphasis on individual impact, but you'll still need to work well with your teammates to secure a victory.
Now featuring a cast of more than 30 heroes, each with distinct abilities and playstyles, you’ll surely find a few Overwatch 2 characters that you can connect with. The first batch of new heroes are all a blast to play. There are many great (though often fairly expensive) new skins to kit them out with too. The game looks and sounds terrific too, thanks to Blizzard’s trademark level of polish. At least until you figure out how to play Overwatch 2, you can marvel at how good it looks.
Astro’s Playroom
Astro’s Playroom
It’s odd to start a best games list with a title that comes free with the console, but if you’re anything like my son, who swiftly deleted Astro’s Playroom to make space for various Call of Duty titles, I’m here to tell you to give the pack-in title another shot. Astro’s Playroom is a love letter to both 3D platformers and the PlayStation itself. It’s also, to date, the title that makes the best use of Sony’s DualSense controller, with incredible haptic feedback and clever usage of the pad’s adaptive triggers. (Although, eight years on, I’m still not convinced anyone has found a compelling reason for that touch pad.) It’s a game that even completionists can finish within six hours or so, but those six hours were among the most fun I’ve had with the PS5 so far.
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
We thought it would never happen. Final Fantasy VII was an iconic JRPG that’s credited with opening up the genre to the west. It peppered the Top 10 lists of the best games of all-time and introduced the long-running Japanese RPG series to polygons, 3D maps, and countless other innovations of 32-bit consoles. 23 years later, and three PlayStation iterations later, Square Enix dared to remake, not remaster, the game. It would be, contentiously, episodic, expanding out the story of Midgar and the opening part of the game into a single game.
It’s all very different. It’s also gorgeous, with a modern battle system that no longer focuses on static characters and menu choices. Somehow, and we were ready to be underwhelmed, the battle system works. FF7R’s fights are slicker and more enjoyable than those in Final Fantasy XV, the latest entry in the series. Each character, from iconic mercenary Cloud through to eco-terrorist Barret and flower girl Aerith, play in entirely different ways, using the space between themselves and enemies in very different ways. Some sub-missions and distractions feel like they’re there solely to eke some more hours out of your playthrough, but the world of the original has been thoughtfully reimagined, so it’s a minor complaint.
For anyone that bought the PS4 iteration, the upgrade to PS5 is free. However, it costs money to gain access to the PS5-exclusive DLC chapter featuring ninja Yuffie. Offering another battle style to experiment with and master, two new extra chapters run alongside the events of the first installment of this remake. Moments of the game feel like they were built to tease how capable the newest PlayStation is, with Yuffie zipping down poles through vertiginous levels, wall-running and mixing up long-range and short-range attacks in a completely different way to Cloud, Aerith and the rest. It suffers a little from trying to tie in FF7 lore from old spin-off titles, but it’s a satisfying distraction as we wait for the second part – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – to arrive in 2023.
Demon's Souls
Demon’s Souls
Bluepoint’s Demon’s Souls remake won’t be for everyone — no Souls game is. The original Demon’s Souls was a sleeper hit in 2009 on the PS3, establishing the basic formula that would later be cemented with Dark Souls, and then aped by an entire industry to the point where we now essentially have a “Soulslike'' genre. Today, that means challenging difficulty, grinding enemies for souls to level up, the retrieval of your corpse to collect said souls, a labyrinthine map to explore and, if you’re doing Soulslike right, some show-stopping boss fights to contend with. As a progenitor to the genre, Demon’s Souls has most of those in abundance. But rather than a huge sprawling map, it uses a portal system, with mini labyrinths to work through. Its bosses are also not quite on the level of impressiveness or difficulty of a more modern Dark Souls game.
Bluepoint has been faithful to the original, then, but graphically Demon’s Souls is a true showcase of what the PS5 can do, with gorgeous high-resolution visuals, smooth frame rates and swift loading. While the graphics certainly catch your eye, it’s the smoothness and loading times that are the most impactful. The original ran at 720p, and… depending on what you were doing 25 to 30 fps, while the remake lets you pick between a locked 30 or 60 fps at 4K or 1440p. And in a game that will likely kill you hundreds of times, waiting two seconds to respawn instead of thirty is transformative.
God of War
God of War
Sony's God of War series had laid dormant for half a decade when its latest incarnation hit stores in early 2018, and for good reason. Antiquated gameplay and troubling themes had made it an ill-fit for the modern gaming landscape. No more. SIE Santa Monica Studio's God of War manages to successfully reboot the series while turning the previous games' narrative weaknesses into its strengths. Kratos is now a dad, the camera is now essentially strapped to his shoulder and Sony has what is sure to become a new series on its hands.
The first outright PS4 game on this collection, God of War has at least been patched for better performance on PS5, allowing it to output at 4K/60. For those subscribed to PS Plus, this one’s available for free as part of the PlayStation Plus Collection on PS5.
Ghost of Tsushima: The Director's Cut
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut
This tale of samurai vengeance is like Japanese cinema come to life. There are multiple betrayals, the sad deaths of several close allies, tense sword fights, villages and castles under siege, and even a ‘Kurosawa mode’ black-and-white filter you employ for the entire game. The world of feudal Japan, with some creative liberties, is gorgeous, with fields of grass and bullrushes to race through on your faithful steed, temple ‘puzzles’ to navigate around and fortresses to assess and attack.
As you make your way through the main story quest, and more than enough side quests and challenges, you unlock more powerful sword techniques and stances, as well as new weapons and forbidden techniques that are neatly woven in the story of a samurai pushed to the edge. It still suffers from one too many fetch quests, artifacts scattered across Japan’s prefectures, but the sheer beauty of Ghost of Tsushima tricks you into believing this is the greatest open-world game on PlayStation. Don’t get me wrong — it’s up there.
With the new Director’s Cut edition on the PS5, you also get dynamic frame-rates up to 60 FPS, ensuring the game looks and feels even more like a tribute to Japanese cinematic auteurs of the past. There are also DualSense tricks, like a bow that tangibly tightens as you pull on trigger buttons, and subtle rumble as you ride across the lands of Tsushima, Director’s Cut adds a new, surprisingly compelling DLC chapter. As you explore the Iki isle, the game adds a few more tricks to Jin’s arsenal, and deepens the relationship and history between the game’s hero and his father.
Without spoiling what happens, the game smartly threads the original story into the DLC, ensuring it feels solidly connected to the main game, despite DLC status.
Deathloop
Deathloop
Deathloop, from the studio that brought you the Dishonored series, is easy enough to explain: You’re trapped in a day that repeats itself. If you die, then you go back to the morning, to repeat the day again. If you last until the end of the day, you still repeat it again. Colt must “break the loop” by efficiently murdering seven main characters, who are inconveniently are never in the same place at the same time. It’s also stylish, accessible and fun.
While you try to figure out your escape from this time anomaly, you’ll also be hunted down by Julianna, another island resident who, like you, is able to remember everything that happens in each loop. She’ll also lock you out of escaping an area, and generally interfere with your plans to escape the time loop. (The online multiplayer is also addictive, flipping the roles around. You play as Julianna, hunting down Colt and foiling his plans for murder. )
As you play through the areas again (and again) you’ll equip yourself with slabs that add supernatural powers, as well as more potent weapons and trinkets to embed into both guns and yourself. It’s through this that you’re able to customize your playstyle or equip yourself in the best way to survive Julianna and nail that assassination. Each time period and area rewards repeat exploration, with secret guns, hidden conversations with NPCs and lots of world-building lore to discover for yourself.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Ultimate Edition
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition
Finally, you don't have to pick up Spider-Man 2 on the GameCube to get your web-slinging fix anymore. For almost 15 years, that game was held as the gold standard for a Spider-Man game, and I'll let you into a secret: It wasn't actually that good. Marvel's Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a tour de force. Featuring the best representation of what it's like to swing through New York City, well, ever, Insomniac's PlayStation exclusive also borrows liberally from the Batman: Arkham series' combat and throws in a story that, although it takes a while to get going, ends up in a jaw-dropping place.
With the launch of the PS5, Insomniac released a Miles Morales spin-off game, which follows the eponymous character as he attempts to protect NYC in Peter Parker’s absence. Both parts are available packaged together as Spider-Man Ultimate Edition— it has a longer name than that but let's not — and benefit from improved framerates, resolution and ray tracing (although not necessarily all at the same time!) With the full graphical package enabled, you’ll be playing at 30 frames per second in 4K, or you can pick between a pair of performance options: 4K/60 with no ray tracing, or 1080p/60 with ray-tracing. Whatever mode you pick, you’ll benefit from loading times that finally make the game’s fast travel system… fast.
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is delightful. It’s a gothic fairy tale masquerading as a survival-horror game, and while this represents a fresh vibe for the franchise, it’s not an unwelcome evolution. The characters and enemies in Village are full of life — even when they’re decidedly undead — and Capcom has put a delicious twist on the idea of vampires, werewolves, sea creatures, giants and creepy dolls. The game retains its horror, puzzle and action roots, and it has Umbrella Corporation’s fingerprints all over it. On PS5, the game is gorgeous and it plays nicely with the DualSense controller, adding haptic feedback to weapons and terrifying situations alike. It simply feels like developers had fun with this one, and so will you.
Returnal
Returnal
Returnalis a third-person action game, a roguelite, a bullet-hell shooter and very hard, perhaps not in that order. The setup is basically that you’re stuck in a death loop, but you’re aware of it, and must learn the patterns and weaknesses of enemies — and master your own — in order to progress. As Devindra Hardwar explains, it leans heavily on the dark sci-fi of Alien, Edge of Tomorrow and Event Horizon but makes something new and unique in the process.
It’s made by the team behind Resogun, Nex Machina and Super Stardust HD, and you can tell, for better or worse. As you’d expect from a team that’s spent the past decades making shooters, the movement, gunplay and enemy attack patterns are incredibly well tuned. But on the flipside, from a studio used to smaller productions, the complexity and ambition of Returnal leads to a lack of polish that some may find unacceptable in a $70 game. If you can look past that, there’s a hell of a game waiting for you here.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice isn't just another Dark Souls game. FromSoftware's samurai adventure is a departure from that well-established formula, replacing slow, weighty combat and gothic despair for stealth, grappling hooks and swift swordplay. Oh, and while it's still a difficult game, it's a lot more accessible than Souls games — you can even pause it! The result of all these changes is something that's still instantly recognizable as a FromSoftware title, but it's its own thing, and it's very good. While the game has yet to receive a proper PS5 upgrade, the extra grunt of Sony’s next-gen console does allow the game to finally run at a locked 60fps — something the PS4 Pro couldn’t handle.
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]]> Quick Overview
Animal Crossings New Horizons
Bayonetta 3 Standard
Neon White
Paranormasight
Metroid Prime Remastered
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Astral Chain
Celeste
DRAGON QUEST XI S – Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition – [Switch Digital Code]
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Hades Limited Edition
Hollow Knight
Into the Breach
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut – Nintendo Switch
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Nintendo Switch [Digital Code]
OlliOlli World
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
However, the Switch's online store isn't the easiest to navigate, so this guide aims to help the uninitiated start off on the right foot and find the best Nintendo Switch games for them. These are the titles you should own — for now. We regularly revise and add to the list as appropriate. Oh, and if you've got a Switch Lite, don't worry: Every game on the list is fully supported by the portable-only console.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossings New Horizons
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the best game in the series yet. It streamlines many of the clunky aspects from earlier games and gives players plenty of motivation to keep shaping their island community. As you'd expect, it also looks better than any previous entry, giving you even more motivation to fill up your virtual home and closet. The sound design reaches ASMR levels of brain-tingling comfort. And yes, it certainly helps that New Horizons is an incredibly soothing escape from reality when we're all stuck at home in the midst of a global pandemic.
Bayonetta 3
Bayonetta 3 Standard
Bayonetta 3 is a delicious amplification of the series’ most ridiculous themes. It indulges in absurdity without disrupting the rapid-fire combat or Bayonetta’s unrivaled sense of fashion and wit. Bayonetta 3 is joyful, mechanically rich and full of action, plus it allows players to transform into a literal hell train in order to take down massive beasts bent on destroying the multiverse. Bayonetta elegantly dances her way through battles, dropping one-liners and shooting enemies with her gun shoes in one moment, and turning into a giant spider creature the next.
The Bayonetta series just keeps getting weirder, but that doesn’t mean it’s losing its sense of satisfying gameplay along the way. In the franchise’s third installment, Bayonetta is powerful, confident and funny; she’s a drag queen in a universe loosely held together by witchcraft, and the chaos of this combination is truly magical.
Neon White
Neon White
Like all good games, Neon White is simple to learn, and difficult to master. The basic ask is that you vanquish every demon from a level and head to a finish marker. It plays like a fast-paced first-person shooter, with the complexity coming from your weapons, which are cards that can either fire or be spent for a special movement or attack ability. The real challenge comes from the scoring system, which grades you based on the time you took to complete a level.
There are just shy of 100 levels, all begging to be learned, repeated and perfected. Despite its first-person shooter visuals, it plays out more like a cross between Trackmania and a platformer. You'll quickly turn that bronze medal into a gold, and then an "ace" that is supposedly your ultimate target. Then you'll see the online leaderboards and realize you've left some seconds on the table. Then you'll randomly achieve the secret red medal on a level, say "oh no" and realize that there's a hidden tier of perfection for you to attain. – Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor
Paramormasight
Paranormasight
If you enjoy visual novels, diverging storylines and maintaining a near-constant level of vigilance to everything a game tells you, Paranormasight is a wild ride. Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo ties together nine (don’t ask) Japanese folktales, spirits, curses and, well, ukiyoe block prints. You’ll hop between multiple characters once you’ve completed the tutorial-style first story, although you’ll inevitably return to this one in the search of clues and hints. Even the style of presentation fits in with the Japanese Twilight Zone vibe. The illustrations have frayed red, blue and green outlines that imitate old TVs. You’ll confront others who hold lethal curse powers creating anime-style stand-offs, as you either try to sneak your way out of danger or get other curse-bearers to fall into your trap. Eventually, it all comes together to a smart conclusion, and we hope there are further Paranormasight chapters to come. — Mat Smith, UK Bureau Chief
Metroid Prime Remastered
Metroid Prime Remastered
Metroid Prime Remasteredmodernizes one of Nintendo’s greatest games, overhauling its models, textures and lighting for HD (while staying at a locked 60 fps) and adding a more comfortable dual-stick control scheme. It leaves the core game alone otherwise, which is a very good thing. Metroid Prime remains a masterwork in atmosphere, one that captures the wonder and isolation of encountering an alien world through someone else’s eyes. Though there is some combat as bounty hunter Samus Aran, this is more of a first-person exploration game than a first-person shooter. Some 20 years on, slowing down and taking in the world of Tallon IV’s details remains entrancing. — Jeff Dunn, Senior Commerce Writer
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Kirby and the Forgotten Land brings Nintendo’s lovable pink blob into 3D. Its structure is far less open and fluid than Super Mario Odyssey, but the game is similarly playful in spirit. The big hook is “mouthful mode,” wherein Kirby swallows and assumes the form of certain objects to get through specific stages. Apart from simply being amusing – enjoy “Coaster-Mouth Kirby” or “Bolted-Storage-Mouth Kirby” – the way this repurposes ordinary materials and presents new sensations is delightful. “Pipe Mouth Kirby” turns a pipe in a rolling cylinder of destruction, “Water-Balloon Mouth Kirby” turns you into a giant wobbly mass, and so on. While it starts recycling by the end, most of the game parades through new ideas in that classic Nintendo way. Though the story isn’t Pulitzer stuff, its ending is wonderfully absurd. And like most Kirby games, it’s breezy enough for folks of all skill levels but not a total cakewalk on the default difficulty. — J.D.
Astral Chain
Astral Chain
I was on the fence about Astral Chain from the day the first trailer came out until a good few hours into my playthrough. It all felt a little too generic, almost a paint-by-numbers rendition of an action game. I needn't have been so worried, as it's one of the more original titles to come from PlatinumGames, the developer behind the Bayonetta series, in recent years.
In a future where the world is under constant attack from creatures that exist on another plane of existence, you play as an officer in a special force that deals with this threat. The game's gimmick is that you can tame these creatures to become Legions that you use in combat. Encounters play out with you controlling both your character and the Legion simultaneously to deal with waves of mobs and larger, more challenging enemies. As well as for combat, you'll use your Legion(s) to solve crimes and traverse environments.
Astral Chain sticks closely to a loop of detective work, platforming puzzles and combat — a little too closely, if I'm being critical — with the game split into cases that serve as chapters. The story starts off well enough but quickly devolves into a mashup of various anime tropes, including twists and arcs ripped straight from some very famous shows and films. However, the minute-to-minute gameplay is enough to keep you engaged through the 20-hour or so main campaign and into the fairly significant end-game content.
Does Astral Chain reach the heights of Nier: Automata? No, not at all, but its combat and environments can often surpass that game, which all-told is probably my favorite of this generation. Often available for under $50 these days, it's well worth your time.
Celeste
Celeste
Celeste is a lot of things. It's a great platformer, but it's also a puzzle game. It's extremely punishing, but it's also very accessible. It puts gameplay above everything, but it has a great story. It's a beautiful, moving and memorable contradiction of a game, created by MattMakesGames, the indie studio behind the excellent Towerfall. So, Celeste is worth picking up no matter what platform you own, but its room-based levels and clear 2D artwork make it a fantastic game to play on the Switch when on the go.
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age
DRAGON QUEST XI S – Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition – [Switch Digital Code]
Dragon Quest XI is an unashamedly traditional Japanese role-playing game. Most of the characters are established RPG tropes: mute protagonist-who’s-actually-a-legendary-hero, sister mages, mysterious rogue and the rest. Then there’s the battle system, which has rarely changed in the decades of the series. (There’s a reason that this special edition features a 16-bit styled version of the game: The mechanics and story work just as well in more… graphically constrained surroundings.) While the story hits a lot of familiar RPG beats, everything takes an interesting turn later on. And through it, the game demands completion. RPGs require compelling stories, and this has one. It just doesn’t quite kick in until later.
This eleventh iteration of the series also serves as a celebration of all things Dragon Quest. Without getting too deep into the story, the game heavily references the first game, taking place in the same narrative universe, just hundreds of years later.
The Switch edition doesn’t offer the most polished take on the game — it’s available on rival consoles — but the characters, designed by Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball fame, move around fluidly, in plenty of detail despite the limits of the hybrid console. And while it’s hard to explain, there’s also something just plain right about playing a traditional JRPG on a Nintendo console.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a must-play game. Developer Intelligent Systems made a lot of tweaks to its formula for the series' first outing on the Nintendo Switch, and the result of those changes is a game that marries Fire Emblem's dual personalities in a meaningful and satisfying way. You'll spend half your time as a master tactician, commanding troops around varied and enjoyable battlefields. The other half? You'll be teaching students and building relationships as a professor at the finest school in the land.
Hades
Hades Limited Edition
Hades was the first early access title to ever make our best PC game list, and the final game is a perfect fit for Nintendo’s Switch. It's an action-RPG developed by the team behind Bastion, Transistor and Pyre. You play Zagreus, son of Hades, who's having a little spat with his dad, and wants to escape from the underworld. To do so, Zagreus has to fight his way through the various levels of the underworld and up to the surface. Along the way, you’ll pick up “boons” from a wide range of ancient deities like Zeus, Ares and Aphrodite, which stack additional effects on your various attacks. Each level is divided into rooms full of demons, items and the occasional miniboss.
As Hades is a “roguelike” game, you start at the same place every time, with the levels rearranged. With that said, the items you collect can be used to access and upgrade new weapons and abilities that stick between sessions. Hades initially caught our attention just for its gameplay: You can jump in for 30 minutes and have a blast, or find yourself playing for hours. As the game neared its final release, the storytelling, world-building and its general character really started to take shape — there’s so much to do, so many people to meet and even some romance stuffed in there. You could play for hundreds of hours and still have fun.
Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight
This was a real sleeper hit, and one of very few Kickstarter games to not only live up to but exceed expectations. Hollow Knightis a 2D action-adventure game in the Metroidvania style, but it's also just a mood. Set in a vast, decrepit land, which you'll explore gradually as you unlock new movement and attack skills for your character, a Burtonesque bug-like creature. Short on both dialogue and narrative, the developers instead convey a story through environment and atmosphere, and it absolutely nails it.
You'll start out feeling fairly powerless, but Hollow Knight has a perfect difficulty curve, always allowing you to progress but never making it easy. For example, it borrows the Dark Souls mechanic where you'll need to travel back to your corpse upon death to retrieve your "Geo" (the game's stand-in for Souls), which is always a tense time. Throughout it all, though, the enemies and NPCs will never fail to delight. For a moody game, it has a nice sense of humor and levity imbued mostly through the beautifully animated and voiced folks you meet. Given its low cost and extremely high quality, there's really no reason not to get this game. Trust us, it'll win you over.
Into The Breach
Into the Breach
When is a turn-based strategy game not a turn-based strategy game? Into the Breach, an indie roguelike game where you control mechs to stem an alien attack, defies conventions, and is all the better for it. While its core mechanics are very much in the XCOM (or Fire Emblem, for that matter) mold, it's what it does with those mechanics that's so interesting. A traditional turn-based strategy game plays out like a game of chess — you plan a move, while predicting what your opponent will do in return, and thinking ahead to what you'll do next, and so on, with the eventual goal of forcing them into a corner and winning. At the start of every Into the Breach turn, the game politely tells you exactly what each enemy character is going to do, down the exact square they'll end on and how much damage they'll inflict. There are no hit percentages, no random events, no luck; each turn is a puzzle, with definitive answers to how exactly you're going to come out on top.
Into the Breach battles are short, and being a roguelike, designed to be very replayable. Once you've mastered the basics and reached the end, there are numerous different mechs with new attack and defense mechanics to learn and master as you mix-and-match to build your favorite team. If you're a fan of either puzzle or turn-based strategy games, this is a must-have.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild signals the biggest shift in the series since the Nintendo 64's Ocarina of Time, and it might well be one of the best games of the past decade. It pulls the long-running series into modern gaming, with a perfectly pitched difficulty curve and an incredible open world to play with. There's crafting, weapons that degrade, almost too much to collect and do and a gentle story hidden away for players to discover for themselves. Even without the entertaining DLC add-ons, there's simply so much to do here and challenges for every level of gamer.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a wild reinvention for one of Nintendo’s most revered franchises, and it didn’t take long for the company to announce it had a direct sequel in the works. The end result is Tears of the Kingdom, a game that remixes BotW in some completely unexpected ways. You’re still exploring Hyrule and can travel to almost any point you can see, and there are still dozens of small shrines to clear and bigger quests you can tackle in any order you like.
But there’s also a vast underworld as well as a mysterious sky world full of islands to explore, and these new locales provide fresh challenges and dangers distinct from what you find in Hyrule proper. And Link has several new skills to give him the upper hand, including, well, Ultrahand. This lets you grab almost anything and stick it to other objects, letting you build all manner of contraptions, both practical and absurd. Ultrahand opens up a huge variety of solutions to every puzzle you come across in the game, and the moment when you find the right solution to what’s impeding you is even more satisfying than it is in past Zelda games. Tears of the Kingdom simply takes just about everything that was great about Breath of the Wild and ratchets it up to the next level. — Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor
Disco Elysium Final Cut
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut – Nintendo Switch
Disco Elysium is a special game. The first release from Estonian studio ZA/UM, it's a sprawling science-fiction RPG that takes more inspiration from D&D and Baldur's Gate than modern combat-focused games. In fact, there is no combat to speak of, instead, you'll be creating your character, choosing what their strengths and weaknesses are, and then passing D&D-style skill checks to make your way through the story. You'll, of course, be leveling up your abilities and boosting stats with items, but really the game's systems fall away in place of a truly engaging story, featuring some of the finest writing to ever grace a video game.
With the Final Cut, released 18 months after the original, this extremely dialogue-heavy game now has full voice acting, which brings the unique world more to life than ever before. After debuting on PC, PS5 and Stadia, Final Cut is now available for all extant home consoles – including Nintendo’s Switch. Loading times are a little slower than on other systems, so it might not be the absolute best platform to play it on, but Disco Elysium is an experience unlike the rest of the Switch library, which is why it makes it on this list.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Nintendo Switch [Digital Code]
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's vibrancy and attention to detail prove it's a valid upgrade to the Wii U original. Characters are animated and endearing as they race around, and Nintendo's made bigger, wider tracks to accommodate up to 12 racers. This edition of Mario Kart included gravity-defying hover tires and automatic gliders for when you soar off ramps, making races even more visually thrilling, but at its core, it's Mario Kart — simple, pure gaming fun. It's also a great showcase for the multitude of playing modes that the Switch is capable of: Two-player split-screen anywhere is possible, as are online races or Switch-on-Switch chaos. For now, this is the definitive edition.
OlliOlli World
OlliOlli World
OlliOlli and its sequel, OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood, were notoriously difficult to master. They were infuriating, but also extremely satisfying when you pulled off just the right combo of tricks and grinds needed for a big score.
I was worried that OlliOlli World’s colorful and welcoming new direction for the series was going to dispense with that level of challenge, but I shouldn’t have been concerned. Developer Roll7 made a game that’s significantly more approachable than the original titles — but one that keeps the twitch-response gameplay and score-chasing highs intact for those who crave them.
It’s hard to sum up exactly what makes OlliOlli World so compelling, but the game mixes serious challenges with moments that let you really get into that elusive flow state, where you’re just pulling off tricks, riding rails and generally tearing through a course without thinking too much about what you’re doing. The music, sound effects, art style, level design and variety of moves you can pull off all contribute to this vibe — and even though the game looks entirely different from its predecessors, the end result is the same: skateboarding bliss.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
Super Mario 3D Worldwas unfairly slept on when it originally launched in 2013, mostly due to the fact very few people had a Wii U. It's a superb translation of old-school retro Mario mechanics into 3D (Mario 64 is a masterpiece, yes, but unless you're a speed-runner it doesn't quite have the pace of the NES and SNES games). It's also a great multiplayer game, as you can play in co-op mode with three other players and race through levels — the winner of each level gets to wear a crown in the next.
With the move to the Switch, and Nintendo finally starting to figure out online gaming, you can now do that remotely, which is a huge plus. The bigger addition is Bowser's Fury, an all-new game of sorts that plays more like a blend of Super Mario Odyssey and 3D World. There are some really creative challenges that feel right out of Odyssey, blended with the lightness and speed of the Wii U game. (It should be noted that Bowser's Fury is also only good for one or two players, unlike the main game.) We'd recommend 3D World just on its own, but as a package with Bowser's Fury, it becomes a much better deal.
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Mario Odyssey might not represent the major change that Breath of the Wild was for the Zelda series, but it’s a great Mario game that's been refined across the last two decades. Yes, we got some important modern improvements, like maps and fast travel, and the power-stealing Cappy is a truly fun addition to Mario's usual tricks. But that core joy of Mario, figuring out the puzzles, racing to collect items and exploring landmarks, is here in abundance.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
This is the ultimate distillation of Nintendo's multiplayer fighting game. The series' debut on Switch brings even more characters from beyond Nintendo's stable. If you're sick of Mario, Pikachu and Metroid's Samus, perhaps Final Fantasy VII's Cloud, Solid Snake or Bayonetta will be your new go-to character. There are about 80 characters to test out here (although 10 of them are locked behind DLC).
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate features a divisive new single-player mode where you augment characters with stickers, battling through special conditions to unlock more characters and, yes, more stickers. At its core, Smash Bros. games combine fast-paced, chaotic fights with an incredibly beginner-friendly learning curve. Yes, some items are confusing or overpowered, but your special moves are only a two-button combination away. Turning the tables is built into the DNA of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, ensuring thrilling battles (once you've sorted handicaps) for everyone involved.
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]]> Quick Overview
Deathloop
Overwatch 2
Control Ultimate Edition
$23 at Amazon$47 at WalmartSee more optionsMore options
Dead Space
$31 at Amazon$45 at WalmartSee more options
Halo Infinite
Forza Horizon 5
$49 at Amazon$58 at WalmartSee more options
Gears of War 5
NieR: Automata – Become As Gods Edition
Ori and the Blind Forest
Pentiment
Hi-Fi Rush
Red Dead Redemption 2
Resident Evil Village
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Lost Judgment
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Microsoft’s console strategy is unique. Someone with a 7-year old Xbox One has access to an almost-identical library of games as the owner of a brand-new Xbox Series X. That makes it difficult to maintain meaningfully different lists for its various consoles — at least for now. But while next-gen exclusives may be few and far between, with PS4 outselling Xbox One by a reported two-to-one, there are a lot of gamers who simply haven’t experienced much of what Microsoft has had to offer since the mid ‘10s.
It’s with that frame of mind that we approach this list: What are the best games we would recommend to someone picking up an Xbox today — whether it’s the best Xbox One games or the top picks for a Series X, a Series S or One S — after an extended break from Microsoft’s consoles?
This list then, is a mixture of games exclusive to Microsoft’s consoles and cross-platform showstoppers that play best on Xbox. We’ve done our best to explain the benefits Microsoft’s systems bring to the table where appropriate. Oh, and while we understand some may have an aversion to subscription services, it’s definitely worth considering Game Pass Ultimate, which will allow you to play many of the games on this list for a monthly fee.
Deathloop
Deathloop
Deathloop, from the studio that brought you the Dishonored series, is easy enough to explain: You’re trapped in a day that repeats itself. If you die, then you go back to the morning, to repeat the day again. If you last until the end of the day, you still repeat it again. Colt must “break the loop” by efficiently murdering seven main characters, who are inconveniently are never in the same place at the same time. It’s also stylish, accessible and fun.
While you try to figure out your escape from this time anomaly, you’ll also be hunted down by Julianna, another island resident who, like you, is able to remember everything that happens in each loop. She’ll also lock you out of escaping an area, and generally interfere with your plans to escape the time loop. (The online multiplayer is also addictive, flipping the roles around. You play as Julianna, hunting down Colt and foiling his plans for murder. )
As you play through the areas again (and again) you’ll equip yourself with slabs that add supernatural powers, as well as more potent weapons and trinkets to embed into both guns and yourself. It’s through this that you’re able to customize your playstyle or equip yourself in the best way to survive Julianna and nail that assassination. Each time period and area rewards repeat exploration, with secret guns, hidden conversations with NPCs and lots of world-building lore to discover for yourself.
Originally a timed PlayStation exclusive, Deathloop landed on Xbox in September 2022.
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2
Even though Blizzard has improved the onramp for new players this time around, Overwatch 2 still has a steep learning curve. Stick with it, though, and you’ll get to indulge in perhaps the best team shooter around. Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win. It’s much more complex in practice. To the untrained eye, matches may seem like colorful chaos, but Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win.
It’s much more complex in practice. Blizzard reduced the number of players on each team from six to five. That, along with across-the-board character tweaks, has made gameplay faster-paced and more enjoyable compared with the original Overwatch. There's a greater emphasis on individual impact, but you'll still need to work well with your teammates to secure a victory.
Now featuring a cast of more than 30 heroes, each with distinct abilities and playstyles, you’ll surely find a few Overwatch 2 characters that you can connect with. The first batch of new heroes are all a blast to play. There are many great (though often fairly expensive) new skins to kit them out with too. The game looks and sounds terrific too, thanks to Blizzard’s trademark level of polish. At least until you figure out how to play Overwatch 2, you can marvel at how good it looks.
Elden Ring
Why would we not include Elden Ring? The strengths of FromSoftware’s latest action-RPG are many, but what’s most impressive about the game is how hand-crafted it feels despite its scale. Elden Ring is big, but it never feels like it’s wasting your time. Far from it; FromSoftware has created a rich open world, with something surprising, delightful or utterly terrifying around every corner. I’ll never forget the moment I found a chest that teleported my character to a cave full of Eldritch monsters. Elden Ring is full of those kinds of discoveries.
And if you’re worried about hitting a brick wall with Elden Ring’s difficulty, don’t be. Sure, it can be tough as nails, but it’s also From’s most accessible game to date as well. If you find combat overly punishing, go for a mage build and blast your enemies from afar, complete side quests and more. And if all else fails, one of the rewards for exploring Elden Ring’s world is experience that you can use to make your character stronger.
Control
Control Ultimate Edition
Take the weird Twin Peaks narrative of Alan Wake, smash it together with Quantum Break's frenetic powers and gunplay, and you've got Control. Playing as a woman searching for her missing brother, you quickly learn there's a thin line between reality and the fantastical. It's catnip for anyone who grew up loving The X-Files and the supernatural. It's also a prime example of a studio working at their creative heights, both refining and evolving the open-world formula that's dominated games for the past decade.
Control on the last-gen Xbox is a mixed affair, with the One S struggling a little, but the One X being head-and-shoulders above the PS4 Pro when it comes to fidelity and smoothness. With the launch of the next-gen consoles, an ‘Ultimate Edition’ emerged which brought the ray-tracing and higher frame rates that PC gamers enjoyed to console players. Although you’ll only get those benefits as a next-gen owner, it also includes all the released DLC and is the edition we recommend buying, even if you’re not planning to immediately upgrade.
Dead Space
Dead Space
TheDead Space remake feels like a warm, juicy hug from a murderous necromorph, and we mean that in the best way possible. The 2023 version of Dead Space spit-shines the mechanics that made the original game so magically horrific back in 2008, and it doesn’t add any unnecessary, modern bloat. The remake features full voice acting, new puzzles and expanded storylines, and it introduces a zero-gravity ability that allows the protagonist, Isaac Clarke, to fly through sections of the game in an ultra-satisfying way.
None of these additions outshine the game’s core loop: stasis, shoot, stomp. Isaac gains the ability to temporarily freeze enemies and he picks up a variety of weapons, but he never feels overpowered; he’s always in danger. Mutilated corpse monsters appear suddenly in the cramped corridors of the space station, charging at Isaac from the shadows, limbs akimbo and begging to be shot off. The first game of Dead Space popularized the idea that headshots don’t matter and the remake stays true to this ethos – yet its combat rhythm still feels fresh.
The 2023 version of Dead Space proves that innovative game design is timeless (and so are plasma cutters).
Halo Infinite
Halo Infinite
Master Chief's latest adventure may not make much sense narratively, but it sure is fun to play. After the middle efforts from 343 Industries over the last decade, Halo Infinite manages to breathe new life into Microsoft's flagship franchise, while also staying true to elements fans love. The main campaign is more open than ever, while also giving you a new freedom of movement with the trusty grappling hook. And the multiplayer mode is wonderfully addictive (though 343 still needs to speed up experience progression), with a bevy of maps and game modes to keep things from getting too stale. The only thing keeping it from greatness is its baffling and disjointed story, but it's not like Xbox fans have many options when it comes to huge exclusives right now.
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5deftly walks a fine line by being an extremely deep and complex racing game that almost anyone can just pick up and play. The game has hundreds of cars that you can tweak endlessly to fit your driving style, and dozens of courses spread all over a gorgeous fictional corner of Mexico. If you crank up the difficulty, one mistake will sink your entire race, and the competition online can be just as fierce.
But if you’re new to racing games, Forza Horizon 5 does an excellent job at getting you up and running. The introduction to the game quickly gives you a taste at the four main race types you’ll come across (street racing, cross-country, etc.), and features like the rewind button mean that you can quickly erase mistakes if you try and take a turn too fast without having to restart your run. Quite simply, Forza Horizon 5 is a beautiful and fun game that works for just about any skill level. It’s easy to pick up and play a few races and move on with your day, or you can sink hours into it trying to become the best driver you can possibly be.
Gears 5
Gears of War 5
Gears 5 tries to be a lot of things, and doesn't succeed at them all. If you're a Gears of War fan, though, there's a lot to love here. The cover-shooter gameplay the series helped pioneer feels great, and the campaign, while not narratively ambitious, is well-paced and full of bombastic set pieces to keep you interested. As they stand, the various multiplayer modes are not great, but Gears 5 is worth it for the campaign alone.
It’s also a true graphical showcase, among the best-looking console games around. Microsoft did a great job optimizing for all platforms and use-cases, with high-resolution and ultra-high (up to 120fps on series consoles) frame rates.
Nier: Automata
NieR: Automata – Become As Gods Edition
It took more than a while to get here, but Nier: Automata finally arrived on Xbox One in the summer of 2018. And boy, was it worth the almost-18-month wait. Nier takes the razor-sharp combat of a Platinum Games title and puts it in a world crafted by everyone's favorite weirdo, Yoko Taro. Don't worry, you can mostly just run, gun and slash your way through the game, but as you finish, and finish and finish this one, you'll find yourself pulled into a truly special narrative, one that's never been done before and will probably never be done again. It’s an unmissable experience, and one that feels all the more unique on Xbox, which has never had the best levels of support from Japanese developers.
On Xbox One X and Series X, you effectively have the best version of Nier: Automata available, short of a fan-patched PC game. On Series S and One S… not so much, but you do at least get consistent framerates on the Series S and a passable experience on the One S.
Ori and the Blind Forest
Ori and the Blind Forest
Arriving at a time when "Gears Halo Forza" seemed to be the beginning, middle and end of Microsoft's publishing plans, Ori and the Blind Forest was a triumph. It's a confident mash of the pixel-perfect platforming popularized by Super Meat Boy, and the rich, unfolding worlds of Metroidvania games. You'll die hundreds of times exploring the titular forest, unlocking skills that allow you to reach new areas. It looks and sounds great — like, Disney great — and its story, while fairly secondary to the experience, is interesting. Ori might not do much to push the boundaries of its genres, but everything it does, it does so right. Its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, is very much “more of everything,” so if you like Blind Forest, it’s well worth checking out too.
Pentiment
Pentiment
Pentimentis a 2D-adventure-meets-visual-novel set in 16th-century Bavaria. You play as Andreas Maler, a young artist from a well-to-do family who gets caught up in a murder mystery while trying to complete his masterpiece. The game itself hinges on its artwork and writing. Both are remarkable: The former is like a medieval manuscript brought to life, while the latter is at once warm and biting, but always in complete control of what it’s trying to say. What starts as a seemingly straightforward whodunit turns into a sweeping, soulful meditation on the nature of history, power, community and truth itself. Time and again, it subverts the “your choices matter!” promise video games have long tried (and mostly failed) to fulfill. You don’t expect one of Microsoft’s best first-party Xbox games to be a riff on Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, but, well, here we are.
Hi-Fi Rush
Hi-Fi Rush
Hi-Fi Rush is a hack-and-slash action game built entirely around its soundtrack. You can move and jump freely, but all of your steps and attacks are timed to the beat of the backing music. If you time your moves right on the beat, you can do more damage and pull off combos. Everything else in the world pulsates and takes action to the same rhythm, from enemy attacks to lights flashing in the background.
Is this revolutionary? Not really. Every hack-and-slasher has a sense of performance and musicality to it; Hi-Fi Rush just makes the subtext explicit. It’s Devil May Cry on a metronome. But it’s fun. Ripping through a room of goons is satisfying in most video games; ripping through them entirely in rhythm, with each dodge and final blow punctuated by a beat, is even more so. It helps that the soundtrack is actually good and that the combat system never punishes you too hard for button mashing in a panic. It also helps that the tone is that of a cel-shaded Saturday morning cartoon, starring a lovable doofus named Chai as he takes on a comically evil megacorp. Hi-Fi Rush has issues – its stages can drag, for one – but it plays like a passion project from the PS3/Xbox 360 era. It has ideas, and its main concern is being a good time.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 is the kind of game no one but Rockstar, the team behind the Grand Theft Auto series, could make. Only when a studio is this successful can it pour millions of dollars and development hours into a game. Rockstar's simulation of a crumbling frontier world is enthralling and serves as a perfect backdrop to an uncharacteristically measured story. While the studio's gameplay may not have moved massively forward, the writing and characters of RDR2 will stay with you.
While Rockstar hasn’t deemed fit to properly upgrade Red Dead Redemption 2 for the next-gen yet, Series X owners will at least benefit from the best last-gen (Xbox One X) experience with the addition of improved loading times. The Series S, on the other hand, gets the One S version, but with an improved 30 fps lock and swifter loading.
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is delightful. It’s a gothic fairy tale masquerading as a survival-horror game, and while this represents a fresh vibe for the franchise, it’s not an unwelcome evolution. The characters and enemies in Village are full of life — even when they’re decidedly undead — and Capcom has put a delicious twist on the idea of vampires, werewolves, sea creatures, giants and creepy dolls. The game retains its horror, puzzle and action roots, and it has Umbrella Corporation’s fingerprints all over it. It simply feels like developers had fun with this one, and so will you.
A word of caution before you run to buy it, though: This game doesn’t play great on every Xbox. On Series X, things are great: There's the option to turn on ray-tracing with the occasional frame rate issue, or to keep it off and have perfect 4K/60 presentation. With the Series S, while there is a ray-tracing mode, it’s almost unplayable. With ray-tracing off, the Series S does a decent job, though. The One X’s 1080p/60 mode is also fantastic, although its quality mode feels very juddery. If you own a base Xbox One or One S, though, there’s really no mode that actually feels enjoyable to play.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice isn't just another Dark Souls game. FromSoftware's samurai adventure is a departure from that well-established formula, replacing slow, weighty combat and gothic despair for stealth, grappling hooks and swift swordplay. Oh, and while it's still a difficult game, it's a lot more accessible than Souls games — you can even pause it! The result of all these changes is something that's still instantly recognizable as a FromSoftware title, but it's its own thing, and it's very good.
This is one game that’s really not had a lot of love from its developer or publisher, as, despite the fact next-gen consoles should be easily able to run this game at 60 fps, the Series S is locked to an inconsistently paced 30 fps, while the Series X doesn’t quite hold to 60 either. With that said, it’s more than playable.
Lost Judgment
Lost Judgment
This is private eye Takayuki Yagami’s second adventure; a spin-off of Sega’s popular, pulpy and convoluted Yakuza saga. He lives in the same Kamurocho area, the same yakuza gangs roam the streets, and there’s the very occasional crossover of side-story characters and, well, weirdos. But instead of punching punks in the face in the name of justice or honor, which was the style of Yakuzaprotagonist Kazuya Kiryu, Yagami fights with the power of his lawyer badge, drone evidence and… sometimes (read: often) he kicks the bad guys in the face.
The sequel skates even closer to some sort of serialized TV drama, punctuated by fights, chases and melodrama. For anyone that’s played the series before, it treads familiar ground, but with a more serious (realistic) story that centers on bullying and suicide problems in Japanese high schools, which is tied into myriad plots encompassing the legal system, politics and organized crime.
Yagami has multiple fighting styles to master, while there are love interests, batting cages, mahjong, skate parks and more activities to sink even more hours into. On the PS5, Lost Judgment looks great. Fights are fluid and the recreated areas in Tokyo and Yokohama are usually full of pedestrians, stores and points of interest. While Yakuza Like a Dragon takes the franchise in a new (turn-based, more ridiculous) direction, Lost Judgment retains the brawling playstyle of the Yakuza series, with a new hero who has, eventually, charmed us.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
We already mentioned this one but it's difficult to overemphasize how good a deal Game Pass is for Xbox owners. For $15 a month you get access to a shifting and growing library of games. The company does a good job explaining what new games are coming and going in advance, so you won't get caught out by a game disappearing from the subscription service just as you're reaching a final boss. There are 11 games mentioned in this guide, and seven of them are currently available with Game Pass. The full library is broad, and, while Microsoft's cloud service is still just in beta, you'll have access to many of the games on your tablet, phone or browser through xCloud at no extra fee.
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]]> Quick Overview
Rollerdrome
Stray
Overwatch 2
Elden Ring
Apex Legends
Beat Saber
Control Ultimate Edition
Disco Elysium – The Final Cut
Halo Infinite
FTL: Faster Than Light
Hades
Half-Life: Alyx
NieR:Automata
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Return of the Obra Dinn
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Forza Horizon 5
Final Fantasy XIV
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Best PC games to play right now
Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome is lush. It’s incredibly stylish, taking cues from 1970s Hollywood sci-fi but with an attractive cel-shaded filter over every scene. Even better than its stunning visuals, Rollerdrome has smooth, precise mechanics that allow players to fall into a flow in every level. The game is all about gliding through the environments on rollerblades, picking up speed and doing tricks while dodging and shooting enemies, managing weapons and controlling time – and it all comes together in a thrilling dystopian bloodsport.
It’s a joy to dodge, dodge, dodge and then leap into the air, slow down time and take out the people shooting at you, refilling ammo and collecting health in the process. Meanwhile, an unsettling story of corporate greed unfolds naturally beneath the rollerblading bloodshed, keeping the stakes high. Rollerdrome was a sleeper hit of 2022, so if you’ve been napping on this one, now’s the time to wake up and play.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Stray
Stray
Stray a perfectly contained adventure game that has you embodying a cat in a post-apocalyptic world humans have left behind. It has plenty of fresh ideas, each one pared down to its purest form. Plenty of actions in Stray exist simply because they make sense for a cat protagonist (and probably because they’re cute as hell). There’s a discrete button to meow, and the robots the cat shares its world with react with shock and frustration when you cut across their board game, throwing pieces to the floor. It’s possible to curl up and sleep basically any time, anywhere – even directly on top of a robot stranger. When the cat gets pets and cuddles from the robots, it purrs and the DualSense’s haptics fire up in response. The environmental puzzles take advantage of this cat-level perspective, inviting players to look at the world with different, light-reflective eyes.
As well as puzzle-solving, ledge-leaping and blob-dodging, Stray introduces a world of lighthearted dystopia, where robots don’t hate the humans that came before them. Instead, they attempt to cultivate plants that can survive in the dark, just because people would have liked that. Compared with most dystopian cyberpunk games, Stray is downright joyful.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2
Even though Activision Blizzard has improved the onramp for new players this time around, Overwatch 2 still has a steep learning curve. Stick with it, though, and you’ll get to indulge in perhaps the best team shooter around. Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win. It’s much more complex in practice. To the untrained eye, matches may seem like colorful chaos, but Overwatch 2 has a deceptively simple goal — stand on or near an objective and keep the other team away long enough to win.
It’s much more complex in practice. Blizzard reduced the number of players on each team from six to five. That, along with across-the-board new character tweaks, has made gameplay faster-paced and more enjoyable compared with the original Overwatch. There's a greater emphasis on individual impact, but you'll still need to work well with your teammates to secure a victory.
Now featuring a cast of more than 30 heroes, each with distinct abilities and playstyles, you’ll surely find a few Overwatch 2 characters that you can connect with. The first batch of new heroes are all a blast to play. There are many great (though often fairly expensive) new skins to kit them out with too. The game looks and sounds terrific too, thanks to Blizzard’s trademark level of polish. At least until you figure out how to play Overwatch 2, you can marvel at how good it looks.
Single-player or multiplayer: Multiplayer
Free to play: Yes
Elden Ring
Elden Ring
Did you think this list would not include Elden Ring? The strengths of FromSoftware’s latest action-RPG are many, but what’s most impressive about the game is how hand-crafted it feels despite its scale. Elden Ring is big, but it never feels like it’s wasting your time. Far from it; FromSoftware has created a rich open world, with something surprising, delightful or utterly terrifying around every corner. I’ll never forget the moment I found a chest that teleported my character to a cave full of Eldritch monsters. Elden Ring is full of those kinds of discoveries.
And if you’re worried about hitting a brick wall with Elden Ring’s difficulty, don’t be. Sure, it can be tough as nails, but it’s also From’s most accessible game to date as well. If you find combat overly punishing, go for a mage build and blast your enemies from afar. And if all else fails, one of the rewards for exploring Elden Ring’s world is experience that you can use to make your character stronger.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player with co-operative
Free to play: No
Apex Legends
Apex Legends
You can find everything compelling about the battle royale genre in a round of Apex Legends. Every move you and your 59 fellow combatants make depends on your collective actions just beforehand. You’re always reacting to one another, whether you see it or not. Each game becomes an intricate web of choices, all stemming back to that initial, seemingly harmless drop onto the map. As with other battles royale, Apex demands you think ahead, assess risks and actually pay attention to your surroundings rather than charge into combat recklessly. And it’s still a thrill when the end is near.
Where Apex stands out compared to rivals like Fortnite, PUBG and Warzone – which are still good times in their own ways – is its character and game feel. Its roster of playable characters is Overwatch-like in its diversity of abilities and styles of movement. Likewise, each gun and attachment has a different impact on how you play. All of it remains exceptionally smooth to control, as expected from the team behind the Titanfall series.
Fortnite may still be the most accessible battle royale shooter, but Apex will feel right at home to anyone familiar with FPS games, and its ping system still makes it possible to work with your teammates without saying a word. It’s still receiving regular updates four years into its life, and it remains a free-to-play game that doesn’t require a dime for you to be competitive.
Single-player or multiplayer: Multiplayer
Free to play: Yes
Beat Saber
Beat Saber
Beat Saber is a euphoric gaming sensation that makes the most of virtual reality. You'll swing your unofficial lightsabers at incoming boxes, slicing and slamming them to the beat of the soundtrack. Similar to iconic rhythm-rail-shooter, Rez, which has its own VR iteration, Beat Saber often makes you feel like you're creating the music as you hit your cues. We might have had initial reservations on the soundtrack at launch but new tracks and customizations continue to add to the challenge. There's even a level creator for PC players, making this the definitive version.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player or online PVP
Free to play: No
Control
Control Ultimate Edition
Take the weird Twin Peaks narrative of Alan Wake, smash it together with Quantum Break's frenetic powers and gunplay, and you've got Control. Playing as a woman searching for her missing brother, you quickly learn there's a thin line between reality and the fantastical. It's catnip for anyone who grew up loving The X-Files and the supernatural. It's also a prime example of a studio working at their creative heights, both refining and evolving the open-world formula that's dominated games for the past decade.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Disco Elysium Final Cut
Disco Elysium – The Final Cut
Disco Elysium is a special game. The first release from Estonian studio ZA/UM, it's a sprawling science-fiction RPG that takes more inspiration from D&D and Baldur's Gate than modern combat-focused games. In fact, there is no combat to speak of, instead, you'll be creating your character, choosing what their strengths and weaknesses are, and then passing D&D-style skill checks to make your way through the story. You'll, of course, be leveling up your abilities and boosting stats with items, but really the game's systems fall away in place of a truly engaging story, featuring some of the finest writing to ever grace a video game.
With the Final Cut, released 18 months after the original, this extremely dialogue-heavy game now has full voice acting, which brings the unique world more to life than ever before. After debuting on PC, PS5 and Stadia, Final Cut is now available for all extant home consoles – including Nintendo’s Switch.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: Yes, as a free upgrade if you already own Disco Elysium
Halo Infinite
Halo Infinite
Master Chief's latest adventure may not make much sense narratively, but it sure is fun to play. After the middle efforts from 343 Industries over the last decade, Halo Infinite manages to breathe new life into Microsoft's flagship franchise, while also staying true to elements fans love. The main campaign is more open than ever, while also giving you a new freedom of movement with the trusty grappling hook. And the multiplayer mode is wonderfully addictive (though 343 still needs to speed up experience progression), with a bevy of maps and game modes to keep things from getting too stale. The only thing keeping it from greatness is its baffling and disjointed story.
Single-player or multiplayer: Multiplayer or campaign
Free to play: Yes
FTL: Faster Than Light
FTL: Faster Than Light
Who hasn't wanted to captain their own spaceship? Well, after a few hours of FTL: Faster Than Light, you might be rethinking your life goals. FTL is a roguelike, which means every game starts from the same spot. All you have to do is travel through a number of star systems, recruiting crew members and collecting scrap as you make your way towards a final showdown against a stupidly overpowered ship. Gameplay is roughly divided between a map view, where you can take as much time as you like to chart the most efficient route to your goal, and combat events which play out in real-time (although you can and will be using a pause button to slow things down).
Where the real fun comes in is in the narrative, which plays out in two ways. There's the structured side, where every so often you'll be asked to make decisions that may improve or hinder your chances of survival. And then there's the natural story you create for yourselves, as you're forced to decide, for example, whether it's worth sacrificing a crew member for the greater good.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single–player
Free to play: No
Hades
Hades
Hades was the first early access title to ever make our best PC game list. It's an action-RPG developed by the team behind Bastion, Transistor and Pyre. You play Zagreus, son of Hades, who's having a little spat with his dad, and wants to escape from the underworld. To do so, Zagreus has to fight his way through the various levels of the underworld and up to the surface. Along the way, you’ll pick up “boons” from a wide range of ancient deities like Zeus, Ares and Aphrodite, which stack additional effects on your various attacks. Each level is divided into rooms full of demons, items and the occasional miniboss.
As Hades is a “roguelike” game, you start at the same place every time. With that said the items you collect can be used to access and upgrade new weapons and abilities that stick between sessions. Hades is on this list not for any reason other than it’s super accessible and very, very fun. You can jump in for 30 minutes and have a blast, or find yourself playing for hours.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Half-Life: Alyx
Half-Life: Alyx
Half-Life: Alyx feels like a miracle. After 13 years away from the franchise, Valve delivered a genuinely thrilling prequel to Half-Life 2 while also charting new territory for VR gameplay. The gravity gloves, its key new feature, is the closest I’ve ever felt to having telekinetic powers. It gives you multiple movement options so you don’t get sick trotting around the expansive environments. Oh yeah, and it’s also absolutely terrifying, banking on the claustrophobic nature of VR. There’s no looking away when a facehugger leaps at you from the dark, or when a horrifically deformed zombie gets in your face. It might sound a bit hyperbolic, but Alyx might end up being one of the most important titles of this generation. Building a big-budget game for a niche VR market doesn’t make much sense for most companies, but for Valve, it’s Tuesday.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Nier Automata
NieR:Automata
Nier Automata takes the razor-sharp combat of a Platinum Games title and puts it in a world crafted by everyone's favorite weirdo, Yoko Taro. Don't worry, you can mostly just run, gun and slash your way through the game, but as you finish, and finish and finish this one, you'll find yourself pulled into a truly special narrative, that's never been done before and will probably never be done again. It's fair to say that the new PC release, as is unfortunately often the case, wasn't exactly the best and is still remarkably lacking in options, but it's at least stable now, and trust us when we say this one is unmissable.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator came out at the perfect time, when the world was on lockdown and airline travel was an impossibility for most people. Not only does Flight Sim let players pilot a vast array of aircrafts, but it presents the world on a platter in stunning, ridiculous detail. It’s an escape, it’s educational and it’s entertaining – is that what they mean by E3? – and there’s really nothing else on its level when it comes to realistic physics simulations. Pandemic or no, Microsoft Flight Simulator is an incredible achievement with a long tail both inside and outside of the video game industry.
Single-player or multiplayer: Both
Free to play: No
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Many were ready to write off the Resident Evil series after the disaster that was Resident Evil 6. What started as the horror game on the original PlayStation had become a bloated mess of an action game. Instead of throwing the whole franchise in the trash and forgetting about it, Capcom took a hard look at what wasn't working, which — surprise! — was basically everything, and thoroughly rebooted the formula. Borrowing from Kojima's PT and, in some ways, Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is horror through powerlessness. For the majority of the game, you're basically unable to do anything but run from or delay your foes. And that's what makes it so good.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Return of the Obra Dinn
Return of the Obra Dinn
This is an unforgettable ghost-story-slash-murder-mystery with a distinctive old-school graphical style. It's unlike any game we've played in a while, with a low-key musical score and a style of puzzle solving that's like one satisfying, grisly riddle. In Return of the Obra Dinn, you're put aboard a ship, alone. There is, however, a corpse near the captain's cabin. As you track the deceased's final footsteps, leading to yet more grisly ends, you need to figure out what happened. Who killed who? And who is still alive? Special mention to the sound effect that kicks in every time you solve the fates of three of the crew. Goosebumps.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
It might be the best open-world RPG out there. Despite now being several years old, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a dense action game that acknowledges the maturity of the player with multiple — occasionally harrowing — storylines, choices that have consequences and almost too much game to wrestle with. It's not perfect; the combat system is rough, frustrating death comes in the form of falling from just a few feet and there's a lot of quest filler alongside many incredibly well thought out distractions. The scope and ambition on display will have you hooked, and once you're done, there are some excellent expansions to check out.
Single-player or multiplayer: Single-player
Free to play: No
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5deftly walks a fine line by being an extremely deep and complex racing game that almost anyone can just pick up and play. The game has hundreds of cars that you can tweak endlessly to fit your driving style, and dozens of courses spread all over a gorgeous fictional corner of Mexico. If you crank up the difficulty, one mistake will sink your entire race, and the competition online can be just as fierce.
But if you’re new to racing games, Forza Horizon 5 does an excellent job at getting you up and running. The introduction to the game quickly gives you a taste at the four main race types you’ll come across (street racing, cross-country, etc.), and features like the rewind button mean that you can quickly erase mistakes if you try and take a turn too fast without having to restart your run. Quite simply, Forza Horizon 5 is a beautiful and fun game that works for just about any skill level. It’s easy to pick up and play a few races and move on with your day, or you can sink hours into it trying to become the best driver you can possibly be.
Single-player or multiplayer: Both
Free to play: No
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV is an ideal MMO for people who don’t play MMOs. Yes, there’s a hotbar and raids and gear to loot, and yes, it requires an enormous time investment to get the most out of it. But at its core, this is a story-driven RPG like any other Final Fantasy. Most of it is built to be played solo; you can even tackle dungeons with AI party members instead of other people. The narrative grows in scope and nuance as you work through its four major expansions, but the base game has its virtues, too. It’s an epic about work, about putting in labor and compassion to rebuild a world that will always be a little broken, one quest at a time. The latest expansion, Endwalker, concludes the core, eight-year-long storyline in rousing fashion.
Being able to quickly swap between classes on one character lets you shake up the admittedly straightforward combat, and you can pick up side “jobs” that are more explicitly about existing in the land instead of saving it. If you want to craft meals as a Culinarian or harvest resources as a Botanist, go for it. If you want to hunt for treasure maps, play at the casino, battle in PvP arenas, listen to Bards play actual music or just be one of those buff green dudes who stands around Limsa Lominsa wearing nothing but bunny ears, you can. Like the best MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV feels like another world, one you’ll probably never grasp in its entirety. And if you do want to play with others, it’s all brought to life by a genuinely welcoming community. Just note that you’ll need to pay a monthly subscription fee, though you can access the base game and first expansion for no added cost.
Single-player or multiplayer: Multiplayer
Free to play: Limited free trial
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Euro Truck Simulator 2 tasks you with driving a bunch of big trucks across Europe, delivering cargo and building out your own trucking business. As the name implies, it’s a sim, so the trucks handle realistically and you’re expected to follow the rules of the road, refuel your car and complete your deliveries on time, with minimal damage. This is a condensed version of Europe, but each trip takes time, and usually, little else of note happens along the way.
That slowness is the point. Euro Truck Simulator 2’s pleasures are similar to those of actual driving: cruising down an open road, listening to real streaming radio stations, glancing at the sights as you pass by. It’s a deeply relaxing game as a result. All you have is the road, a destination and a hulking rig to keep on track. You’ll get there when you get there. The management bits of Euro Truck Simulator 2 aren’t as interesting as the driving, but there are loads of mods and DLC to shake up the experience. If you’d prefer trucking through the US, American Truck Simulator is a similar title from the same studio.
Single-player or multiplayer: Both
Free to play: Limited free trial
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]]> Quick Overview
Super Mario 3D World
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Rayman Legends
Baldur’s Gate 3
Vampire Survivors
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
BoxBoy! + BoxGirl!
It Takes Two
Portal 2
Streets of Rage 4
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Stardew Valley
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Untitled Goose Game
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Spiritfarer
Overcooked! All You Can Eat
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Cuphead
Spelunky and Spelunky 2
Ikaruga
Wizard of Legend
Assault Android Cactus
Wilmot’s Warehouse
Escape Academy
$20 at PlayStationSee 21 moreNintendo
Super Mario 3D World
Available for: SwitchLength: 17 hours
You know the broad strokes of any Super Mario game by now. But within the series, Super Mario 3D World stands out for using a largely fixed camera and levels that are more semi-3D than the totally open spaces in Super Mario Odyssey or Super Mario Galaxy. There are still many items to grab and secrets to uncover across the characteristically charming, brisk and inventive stages — but everything you can find at a given moment is right in front of you, which encourages you to look closer and move from foreground to background.
Co-op play can be chaotic, but 3D World owns that. You and up to three buddies share lives but are scored on your individual performance, with the leader receiving a literal crown at the end of each level. This makes for a sort of competitive co-op mode, one in which a devious “teammate” could straight-up grab you and chuck you off a cliff in an attempt to secure their high score. The adventure only has to be as spicy as you and your partners want it to be, though; if you aren’t playing with a group of sickos, 3D World should be an exciting update to a familiar Mario formula.
We’ll also shout out Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the latest 2D Mario game. That one supports local multiplayer too, but its camera is a bit too zoomed-in, which can make it harder for players of different skill levels to stay on screen at once. It’s a great platformer and still a decent co-op experience, but it feels designed for solo play first and foremost.
Nintendo
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Available for: SwitchLength: 15 hours
Like most Donkey Kong Country games, Tropical Freezeis a 2D platformer that’s both structurally straightforward and aesthetically gorgeous. Donkey Kong is not Mario: He has a more immediate sense of gravity to him, so when he leaps, he comes down hard. But the platforming is uniquely deliberate as a result, and the way the game leads you from one stunning scene to the next, even within the same stage, is a delight.
Tropical Freeze can get difficult, particularly during some later boss fights, but a “Funky Mode” in the Switch version eases things slightly. If you still have a Wii or Wii U, meanwhile, this game’s predecessor, Donkey Kong Country Returns, is just as great, if not better.
Ubisoft
Rayman Legends
Available for: PS4, Switch, Xbox, PCLength: 16 hours
If Donkey Kong is Mario’s brutish animal pal, Rayman is the eccentric French buddy he visits when he’s overseas. Rayman Legends is a more out there 2D platformer than the Nintendo properties above: Instead of the pristine environments and perfect geometry of a Mario or Donkey Kong game, here everything is a bit more abstract, cartoony and crass. (There are more fart sounds, for one.)
The moment-to-moment movement is a little less precise, too, but Legends still plays fast and light, with stages that are loaded with optional rooms and collectibles that invite your curiosity. This is an unpretentious game, a fun side-scrolling platformer that merely wants to be a fun side-scrolling platformer, and it becomes more enjoyable (and frantic) with friends.
Larian Studios
Baldur’s Gate 3
Available for: PC, PS5, XboxLength: 105 hours
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a mammoth CRPG that plays like a digital Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Part of that is because it’s set in the “Forgotten Realms;” another is because its tricky, turn-based combat is based on D&D 5th Edition’s rules. But most of the resemblance lies in its flexible spirit. No video game is as malleable as a real DM’s imagination, but Baldur’s Gate 3 asks you to make a ton of decisions, even when you don’t realize it, and the timeline of its world morphs alongside them. It becomes more rigid as it rolls along, but a driving plot and a compelling cast of characters help keep it moving. The near-universal praise is no accident: Baldur’s Gate 3 follows gaming’s eternal promise, that “your choices matter,” to an extent most narrative-based games do not.
All of this works better as a solo experience, but it takes on a different flavor in its co-op mode. You and a partner can go through the whole story, but neither of you haveto follow the other’s lead. Part of the fun is in the ways your buddy could undermine or alter your quest in unforeseen ways, perhaps by killing an important NPC or taking up a quest with contradictory goals. But if you want to travel together and work out combat strategies in harmony, that’s fine too. As with Divinity: Original Sin 2, another great couch co-op RPG from developer Larian Studios, the question is this: What would happen if your RPG party members behaved like actual people, not a collective bound to one path? The answer: a mess, potentially, but a thrilling one. Just note that a playthrough can last well over 100 hours, so you’ll want a partner who can commit for the long haul.
Poncle
Vampire Survivors
Available for: Xbox, Switch, PCLength: 33 hours
Vampire Survivors is a retro-looking, shoot-em-up title with a twist: The game shoots for you. You select from a handful of characters, each with distinct abilities, and face hordes of monsters in a set of endless stages. As you defeat enemies, you gain experience. With each level-up, you choose a new weapon or passive ability, adding a layer of strategy and contingency as you figure out fun “builds.” Do it right, and you’ll mow down screens of baddies within seconds. The only goal is to survive until a time limit. It’s a focused, naturally replayable loop, and the comically huge amount of cannon fodder you end up blasting by the end of each round borders on a parody of gaming power fantasies. But it’s that auto-firing that makes Vampire Survivors stand out: Instead of caring about aiming or dexterity, it’s about movement and the ability to visualize space within chaos.
All of this still applies in its co-op mode, which supports up to four players, but there’s a new element of communication on top. You split weapons and trade off leveling upgrades, so you’re encouraged to stick together and work out how to turn your team into a collective monster-blasting machine. This can make the game slower and tougher, especially at first, but the extra tension adds more excitement to each run.
Nintendo
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Available for: SwitchLength: 16 hours
Luigi’s Mansion 3is another ghost-hunting adventure starring Mario’s scaredy-cat brother, who this time must stomach his fears and use his “Poltergust” vacuum to rescue his friends from a haunted hotel. Its co-op mode isn’t available until an hour-ish into the story, but at that point, a second player can become “Gooigi,” a Luigi clone made of green goo with infinite lives. (It makes sense when you get there.) Though the game isn’t particularly tough, this setup gives you more freedom to mess around with puzzle and boss fight solutions without having to start over repeatedly.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 has some frustrating elements more generally — controlling that ghost-gobbling vacuum can be annoyingly imprecise, and backtracking through previously-conquered areas can get tedious — but the creative level designs and Pixar-esque animation give it a distinct personality compared to other Nintendo games. It’s a silly and usually satisfying time, one that’s especially well-suited for kids.
Nintendo
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
Available for: SwitchLength: 18 hours
Clubhouse Gamesis a compilation of 51 classic tabletop games, from Yahtzee and Connect Four to shogi and nine men’s morris. Not every entry in the collection supports couch co-op, but most do, and almost all are made easy to grasp.
Apart from being accessible, Clubhouse Games stands out for the quality of its curation. The included games span cultures, time periods and even modes of play; some are built on skill or patience, others on abstraction or chance. When you first boot up the game, you’re asked to identify your “heart’s desire,” and there’s a fair bit of detail on each game’s origins and history as you go along. Taken as a whole, this is a game that recognizes play itself as a kind of universal connection. But even ignoring all of that, Clubhouse Games is a fun, chill time — much like busting out a favorite board game.
Nintendo
BoxBoy! + BoxGirl!
Available for: SwitchLength: 11 hours
BoxBoy! + BoxGirl!may not look like much, but this minimalist puzzler from Kirby makers HAL Laboratory has the kind of simple pleasure and regularly inventive design you’d expect from a Nintendo-published game. In its two-player campaign, you play as Qbby and Qucy, two walking boxes with the ability to grow additional boxes out of their heads. Your goal is to get from point A to point B, using those boxes to cross gaps and navigate various obstacles along the way.
The catch is that you can only create a certain amount of boxes at a time, so you and your partner often have to think outside the box (sorry) to find a safe way past. You’ll start off making basic bridges, but the bite-sized levels quickly build on themselves with a stream of new ideas. Eventually, you’ll find yourself using boxes as makeshift grappling hooks, shovels, laser-blocking shields and more, in ways that quickly make sense. Simply beating the game isn’t difficult, but collecting the tricky-to-reach crowns tucked away in each stage brings a greater challenge if you want it.
EA
It Takes Two
Available for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PCLength: 14 hours
The 3D platformer It Takes Two is one of the few full-scale, narrative-driven games that’s designed to be exclusively played in co-op. As such, it takes care to avoid the trappings of many co-op experiences: It rarely asks both players to do the same thing at the same time, and thus it rarely makes one person carry all the weight. It constantly throws new concepts at you, and while some levels can drag, its bouncy movement feels good throughout.
Its saccharine yet oddly dark story isn’t as satisfying: Few games make divorce seem like a happy ending as much as this one, and you’ll never want to hear the words “Dr. Hakim” again by the time you’re done. But if you can ignore the dialogue, It Takes Two delights more than it doesn’t.
Valve
Portal 2
Available for: PC, Switch, XboxLength: 11 hours
The first-person puzzler Portal 2 launched more than 12 years ago, but it’s received new life with a Switch rerelease. Either way, its sharp writing and cleverly layered puzzles more than hold up today. Co-op play takes the form of an entire separate campaign. It’s not as big on story as the solo mode, but it still does a fantastic job of gradually teaching you how to think spatially. It also ensures you and your partner actually communicate. There’s no way to play on PS4 or PS5 nowadays, but on PC, you can download a range of community maps for a greater challenge, too.
Dotemu
Streets of Rage 4
Available for: Xbox, Switch, PS4, PCLength: 4 hours
Streets of Rage 4faithfully revives the classic series of side-scrolling beat-em-ups from the Sega Genesis (which remain fine co-op playthroughs themselves). You move to the right, position yourself efficiently and pulverize waves of bozos with a flurry of punches, kicks, throws and special moves. The hand-drawn animation style and bouncy soundtrack are both great, and most set pieces convey the “rage” part of the title effectively. This isn’t the most ambitious game, as it largely aims to hit high notes from 30 years ago, but it provides the kind of thrill, style and refinement any good beat-em-up should.
For a more accessible, albeit simpler, throwback brawler, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is worth considering as well.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Available for: PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox, PCLength: 40 hours
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is a Lego-ified romp through the nine mainline Star Warsfilms. Like most Lego games, it’s dead simple to play — collect the things, bop the bad guys — so just about anyone can pick it up and enjoy. The best thing it has going for it is its sense of humor, as its abbreviated remakes of each film are loaded with cutesy gags and in-jokes. One favorite: wandering around Cloud City and finding the room where Lando Calrissian keeps his hoard of capes — and a heroic portrait of himself.
There’s an absurd amount of side quests and collectibles beyond the narrative bits, but most of those are repetitive. And the game’s cor systems, while fun, aren’t meaty enough to make optional content all that interesting. Still, if you stick to the main stuff, you should find Skywalker Saga to be a good-natured love letter to some inherently goofy films.
ConcernedApe
Stardew Valley
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 90 hours
Stardew Valley has exploded in popularity since arriving back in 2016, and it’s easy to see why: More than just a laid-back farming sim a la Harvest Moon, it is an escape, an engrossing alternate life where you’re allowed to putter around your farm, mosey through town, and take life slow, free from the burdens of aggression and competition. You and a friend can share a farm and divide up tasks in co-op, but the game isn’t fussy; if one of you would rather fish, explore the beach or simply sit around your house, it’s OK to do your thing. If you’d rather ruthlessly optimize your land for profits, that’s an option as well. Just note that you’ll need to build a cabin for your partner if they’re joining an existing farm.
Xbox Game Studios
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Available for: Xbox, PC (no local co-op)Length: 44 hours
Halo: The Master Chief Collectionbundles remastered versions of the first six mainline Halo games, which continue to provide tighter control and pacing than most first-person shooters that’ve been released in the decades since. The original Halo’s campaign in particular remains essential. While some of the later narratives go completely off the rails — looking at you, Halo 4 — the general tone still strikes the right balance between goofiness and badassery. The newer Halo Infinite sadly dropped couch co-op altogether, but there’s still good fun to be had driving Warthogs and dual-wielding space guns in the classics. Just be aware that local multiplayer is only supported on Xbox, not PC.
Panic
Untitled Goose Game
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 4 hours
Untitled Goose Gameis a simple puzzle/stealth game that gets a lot of mileage out of its premise: You are a goose, and your only goal in life is to aggravate the residents of a little English village. If the idea of dragging a groundskeeper’s rake into a lake, pulling a seat out from under an old man right as he goes to sit down and generally honking at everyone in sight sounds funny to you, it’ll probably give you a good laugh.
The actual game part doesn’t have much variance to it — you mostly trial-and-error your way through a checklist of troll-y activities — but it’s appropriately silly, and it ends quickly enough to not run its joke into the ground.
Finji
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Available for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PCLength: 14 hours
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an open-hearted adventure game set in a world of talking animals, where the wielder of a magic paintbrush is tasked with literally filling the land with color. You play as a sprightly dog who becomes that wielder. What follows is a cozy adventure in the vein of Zelda, but with a twist: You can use the brush to paint over the environment, at any point, anywhere you want, in various colors and patterns. This turns a somewhat familiar game into something of a digital coloring book, one that remembers your markings in time as you go along. Chicory is exceedingly gentle and never suggests you’re doing it wrong, so if you want to spend 45 minutes ignoring the story and painting trees purple, you can. There are tons of accessibility options on top of that.
In co-op, player one still controls the pace of progression, but player two gets another brush with all the same abilities. On top of giving a second set of hands to deal with the game’s various puzzles and boss encounters, this lets you both create a shared impression on the world, like two kids sharing crayons on a children’s menu. The narrative gets heavier than the cutesy art style suggests, exploring themes of self-doubt, impostor syndrome and other struggles that can come with creative work. But it’s refreshingly earnest throughout. If you’re looking for a warm, caring, but still goofy co-op experience, Chicory is worth a shot.
Thunder Lotus Games
Spiritfarer
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 35 hours
Spiritfarer is a management sim not unlike Animal Crossing, but with some light platforming elements. Like Chicory, it’s generally relaxed, sincere and low-stakes, but occasionally devastating in the way it puts a friendly face on adult themes. You play as Stella, a young woman who becomes tasked with ferrying freshly deceased souls into the afterlife. This mostly involves exploring the seas on a big boat, doing quests and gathering and crafting resources to make passing on more comfortable for the many characters you get to know. Player two joins in as Stella’s pet cat, Daffodil, who can’t trigger quests but can help with platforming and management tasks.
Spiritfarer’s sim elements can sometimes feel monotonous, and the way it addresses death head-on can be sad. Yet it stands out for being as much about love and care as sorrow. If you and your partner are into management sims and aren’t afraid to shed a tear, there’s beauty to be found here.
Team17 Digital
Overcooked! All You Can Eat
Available for: Switch, PS4 & PS5, Xbox, PCLength: 36 hours
The Overcooked! games set you and up to three friends as chefs tasked with preparing various meals on a timer. In theory, this is as simple as grabbing the right ingredients, preparing them properly, then sending the finished plate off on time. But as the orders keep piling up and parts of the levels start to conspire against you, your ability to scramble and communicate under pressure is increasingly put to the test. There’s a non-zero chance your partner will call you an “idiot sandwich” by the time you’re done.
With its adorable looks, Overcooked! knows what it’s doing, but fighting through the anxiety of its most chaotic levels brings a particularly comical sense of accomplishment. The All You Can Eat edition includes the original Overcooked!, the (superior) sequel Overcooked 2! and all of their DLC. It also adds an “assist mode” that lets you ease up the timers on each order — which, yes, kind of defeats the point of the game, but also might be necessary if you and your friends start screaming at each other over cartoon fish chopping.
Asteroid Base
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 7 hours
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetimeis a vibrant space shooter in which you and up to three partners must collectively navigate a chunky battleship through levels packed with baddies and other obstacles. There are eight panels for controlling the ship’s engine, shields and various weapons, but each player can only man one station at a time, so you have no choice but to scramble and communicate to keep your shared body alive for as long as possible. The net effect isn’t unlike Overcooked!, then, but if you don’t mind a little stress, Lovers is effective in the way it makes you and your buddies work toward a common goal.
Studio MDHR Entertainment Inc.
Cuphead
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 15 hours
The run-and-gun shooter Cuphead is a stunner, with a lovely soundtrack and luscious animation that combine to make the whole thing feel like a playable cartoon from the ‘30s. (It’s no wonder there’s a TV show based on the game.) Somehow, the story, about a pair of talking cups who make a deal with the Devil, fits the art style like a glove.
Actually playing Cuphead, meanwhile, is an exercise in punishment. It is brutally difficult, with several intense boss fights that demand serious concentration. Playing it in co-op makes it even tougher, as those bosses gain more health, and having two characters jump around can make the action more chaotic. That said, the challenge is not cheap, and overcoming each fight brings the expected wave of catharsis. If you have a bit of a masochistic streak, it’s worth a go. Try the DLC expansion, too.
Mossmouth
Spelunky and Spelunky 2
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 108 hours
Spelunky helped popularize the trend of modern 2D platformers with roguelike elements — i.e., games where you mostly start from scratch upon death. Spelunky 2, released about a decade later in 2020, essentially polishes the original game’s formula.
Like Cuphead, neither of these games is for the faint of heart. Traversing their caves while avoiding the many death traps within is like descending into cartoon Hell. But again, it’s a (mostly) fair and legible challenge if you can stay patient. The procedurally generated levels keep exploration from feeling totally rigid, and the frankness and pure speed with which death can hit you gives everything a morbid sense of humor. Couch co-op can feel somewhat unnatural at times — everyone has to stick near player one to stay on camera — but having a partner or three to revive you is a relief, provided you don’t accidentally blow each other up first.
Treasure
Ikaruga
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 3 hours
Ikaruga is more than two decades old, but it remains a crown jewel among shoot-em-ups. It takes a simple idea — every enemy and projectile in the game is either white or black, and you must change your ship’s color accordingly to survive —then makes the most of it across five meticulously crafted stages. It’s another notoriously difficult one, but there’s not an ounce of fat on it, and its central mechanic forces you and your partner into a near-perfect state of concentration. If you’re craving an arcade-style shooter, it’s still a rush. And if you get sick of dying, know that recent releases have added more accessibility settings, including the option for infinite continues.
Humble Games
Wizard of Legend
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 17 hours
Wizard of Legendis a top-down, 2D dungeon crawler with an emphasis on speed. It’s another skill-based roguelike, but letting your arsenal of spells fly and figuring out how to best chain attacks with your partner is a joy. Simply moving around is pleasingly kinetic, and the pixelated art style is kind on the eyes. It’s probably not enough to convince the roguelike-averse to hop aboard, but Wizard of Legend is a good one of those all the same.
Witch Beam
Assault Android Cactus
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 6 hours
Assault Android Cactus is an intense twin-stick shooter. You and up to three friends play as little androids charged with surviving hordes of robot baddies on a space freighter. (The tone is much more campy than gritty, thankfully.) Its tension derives from the fact that each android runs on a continuously depleting battery; if emptied, it’s game over. Since you can only replenish that battery by defeating waves of enemies, it behooves you to play aggressively and keep moving. The nonstop rush of baddies, gunfire and power-ups Cactus throws at you is exhilarating, and it’s heightened by quick-burst levels that rarely sit still. It’s not easy, but it’s far from unfair, with most of the challenge derived from chasing high scores.
Finji
Wilmot’s Warehouse
Available for: Switch, PS4, Xbox, PCLength: 9 hours
Wilmot’s Warehouseis a clever little game about organizing an ever-growing warehouse. At the start of each level, you get a batch of colorful boxes, which you must gather and tuck away on a timer. Exactly how you organize them is up to you. When the timer ends, customers will start requesting certain products within the warehouse, and the challenge becomes retrieving the corresponding boxes as quickly as possible.
The game, then, is coming up with a system that will let your specific brain remember where everything is and adapt to new box types as they roll in. There’s a frenzy to completing orders, and a dark undercurrent to the idea of two warehouse workers being scored as they fulfill this many orders and strive this hard for efficiency. (The latter is made particularly clear in the game’s sudden ending.) In the abstract, though, Wilmot’s Warehouse makes a soothing game out of our unending desire to create order from chaos.
iam8bit
Escape Academy
Available for: PS4 & PS5, Switch, Xbox, PCLength: 5 hours
Escape Academy is, in essence, a series of digital escape rooms. You work with a partner, comb for clues, decipher codes and solve puzzles to get out of locked rooms within a time limit. Like the real thing, it can result in some shouting, but it encourages constant teamwork and ultimately provides a sense of empowerment. The puzzles themselves are varied, but maybe a touch too easy. And the overarching narrative that ties the challenges together is just kind of there. However, if you and a partner have been itching to try a real-world escape room, Escape Academy should serve as a charming substitute for a couple of afternoons.
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