The 15 Best PS4 Games

Santa Monica Studio’s latest entry in the God of War franchise gears Kratos up to head back into battle against the Norse pantheon. This fight isn’t born of bloodlust, though. The Greek god is working to save his son’s very soul as impending doom approaches. As Kratos and Atreus go head-to-head with Odin and Thor, God of War Ragnarok explores what it means to be a father in a mythological epic about family.

Aside from Ragnarök’s deeply emotional narrative, the game is mechanically stronger than its predecessor, refining the suite of weapons from God of War (2018). Iconic arms like the Blades of Chaos swing with more fluidity, and the shield is now a more proactive than reactive tool, becoming a weapon in its own right. Ragnarök might be focused on exploring the human side of Kratos, but he’s still the god of war — and gruesome, cinematic carnage is left in his wake.

Release Date: Nov. 9, 2022
Genre: Hack-and-slashing pantheon-clashing adventure
Developer: Santa Monica Studio

Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic hit series is, at its core, a story about love, loss and revenge. The Last of Us Part 2 is firmly rooted in that latter category, as the dual protagonists Abby and Ellie both sacrifice everything to lash out at one another for past traumas. Players guide the women on their bloody warpath across Seattle as they contend with an armed militia, a religious cult and lots of fungal zombies as they fight to avenge their fathers.

The Last of Us Part 2 is painted against the backdrop of a world healing after societal collapse, but brutality still rules outside of settlement walls. Combat is varied, allowing you to exercise extreme amounts of agency in your approach. Stealthy melee attacks, bows and silenced weapons can take out small pockets of enemies, if you want to sneak past the rest. It’s also possible to systematically and viscerally dismantle every enemy with mines, rifles, molotov cocktails and more, shedding innocent blood on the quest for revenge.

The Last of Us Part 2 will immerse you in a world where only the strongest survive — and you won’t feel good about it afterward.

Release Date: June 19, 2020
Genre: Brutal third-person zombie survival shooter
Developer: Naughty Dog

Red Dead Redemption was a formulaic Rockstar game, reveling in its presentation of oddball caricatures and over-the-top stereotypes. That isn’t the case for the sequel. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a serious, emotional tale about the bandit Arthur Morgan and his struggle to be a good man. As Arthur pulls off heist after heist, it becomes increasingly clear that a Tahitian retirement is out of reach. Now he has to use all of his skills to save his gang (including the Marston family) from themselves.

Aside from narrative excellence, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an important game for pushing Rockstar’s design philosophy to the limit. Realism is the greatest virtue. Arthur gets fat when he eats and loses weight when he exercises, guns need to be cleaned and maintained to function properly and most NPCs have their own daily routines. Red Dead 2 is on a mission to fully immerse players in the dying wild west, and it’s willing to put you through mundane trials and tribulations to make you feel like you’re surviving in a living, breathing world.

Release Date: Oct. 26, 2018
Genre: Rootin’ tootin’ third-person shooter and crime simulator
Developer: Rockstar Games

Sony might not have the best track record when it comes to handling Spider-Man and his villains on the big screen, but they made the right choice by entrusting Insomniac Games with their web-swinging hero. In the game, Peter Parker has been fighting villains for eight years, and he’s already an accomplished hero. His biggest battle seems to be a good work-life balance as he struggles to hold his personal relationships together. That all changes with the arrival of Mr. Negative and the Sinister Six, the greatest super-powered threats that Peter has ever gone up against.

Marvel’s Spider-Man lets players explore a fully realized New York, chock full of puzzles to solve,  collectibles to find and plenty of skyscrapers to breathlessly swing between. There are people to save and crimes to stop on every corner, making the city feel truly alive. Most importantly, though, Marvel’s Spider-Man holds utmost reverence for the titular character, showing off how Peter Parker will get up no matter how many times he gets knocked down. Peter develops important bonds and suffers heartbreaking losses, but despite it all you can always count on your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Release Date: Sept. 7, 2018
Genre: Open-world superhero narrative adventure
Developer: Insomniac Games

Media Molecule’s latest game pushes their design philosophy to the limits: any experience you dream up can become a level for other players to enjoy. Whereas LittleBigPlanet and its sequels (mostly) confined players to creating platforming levels with their creative tools, Dreams is a fully realized platform that allows anyone to weave together their dream level — including any game mechanics, genre combinations and camera perspective — provided they have enough talent to make it happen.

Even if you’re not interested in making your own contributions to the community, Dreams is still one of the most unique games you can play on the PS4. You’re able to access anyone else’s published dreams through the level browser, tuning into anything from vaporwave walking sims to wanton supermarket destruction. It’s never long before you get a chance to play a high-quality dream, whether you’re playing Media Molecule’s own maps, their handpicked and curated playlist of user-generated content or stumbling upon a hidden gem.

Dreams is no longer supported with new updates, but there are hundreds of thousands of dreams out there just waiting to be discovered.

Release Date: Feb. 14, 2020
Genre: Game-making tool, repository and social platform
Developer: Media Molecule

Knack is back — and it’s easy to see why the Japan Studio game was a pack-in title for certain PlayStation 4 bundles. This colorful platforming beat ’em up has players guide the titular character through a quest to defeat robots and goblins in order to defend the people he loves. When a new machine threatens to send humanity back to the stone age, Knack needs to shut it down and defeat a new villain at any cost.

Japan Studio was a pedigreed developer — working on previous titles such as Ape Escape, LocoRoco and Patapon — and the joy and whimsy present in those games is a mainstay in the Knack series. Knack 2 doesn’t necessarily do any one particular thing the best, but it has lots of (fairly easy) puzzles, inventive power-ups and monster brawls that make it a memorable family-friendly PS4 game. Sitting down with a friend and plugging in another controller for couch co-op will remind you of games from a simpler time.

Release Date: Sept. 5, 2017
Genre: Couch co-op platforming beat ’em up
Developer: Japan Studio

Just like its predecessor, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian is a game that will inevitably get you to become a little too emotionally attached to a massive animal. Thankfully, it’s not your job to kill Trico, the enormous bird-dog shackled at the start of the game. Instead, he becomes the player’s buddy, and it takes the combined power of man and beast to solve puzzles, overcome platforming challenges and defeat the ancient evil master of the valley.

The Last Guardian isn’t the easiest game to play. Trico often ignores the player or uses his own intuition to attempt to solve things by himself. The animal companion often bristles in tight places or gets playful bursts of energy. Oftentimes, Trico will protect the player from danger — but sometimes it’s up to you to protect him, instead. The most impressive piece of The Last Guardian’s formula is making your furry friend feel like a real creature — and the growing bond between Trico and the boy is the only thing keeping them safe.

Release Date: Dec. 6, 2016
Genre: Heartfelt fantasy puzzle platformer
Developer: Japan Studio, GenDesign

Ready at Dawn’s The Order: 1886 takes place in an alternate history steampunk London overrun by creatures of the night. Only the Knights of the Round Table, an ancient order that has advanced alongside the Industrial Revolution, stand united to protect mankind. When a sinister plot starts to unleash lycans, vampires and half-breeds on civilians across the city, it’s up to Sir Galahad and his compatriots to discover the cause of this uptick in monstrous activity.

The Order: 1886 is a tightly crafted third-person cover shooter that’s elevated by its setting. The steampunk city of London feels like a living, breathing place melding machinery and high-class aristocratic architecture. Character models and locales pushed the limits of graphical fidelity in 2015 and still hold up today thanks to the use of advanced, pre-calculated lighting techniques that illuminate the world just right. Gear up, Galahad. It’s time to take on the beastly scourge.

Release Date: Feb. 20, 2015
Genre: Alternate history supernatural third-person shooter
Developer: Ready at Dawn

Building on FromSoftware’s pedigreed history of action RPGs, Bloodborne eschews the developer’s dark fantasy roots in favor of gothic cosmic horror. Afflicted with terrible disease, the player travels to the ancient city of Yharnam to receive a miraculous blood transfusion offered by the Healing Church — but to undergo treatment, one must sign a contract to hunt the beasts plaguing the city. Revitalized by the blood, it becomes your quest to purge the monsters and weather the worst night in Yharnam’s history.

Even if you’ve never played a Souls game before, Bloodborne is a great entry point in FromSoftware’s back catalog. The gameplay is quicker and more fluid than the original Dark Souls, with a rally system allowing players to hack away at enemies to recover a portion of their lost health. Trick weapons transform in battle, allowing players to weave complex moves with different damage types into a single combo. Bloodborne provides an incredible amount of tools to any player looking to plumb the depths of Yharnam — and any of its nightmare realms on the periphery of perception.

Release Date: March 24, 2015
Genre: Gothic horror action RPG
Developer: FromSoftware

If you have any interest in PlayStation’s resident treasure hunter, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection might offer you some of the best bang for your buck you’ll ever get on the PS4. The remastered versions of Drake’s Fortune, Among Thieves and Drake’s Deception are the definitive way to experience Nathan Drake’s globetrotting exploits, whether you’re fighting Serbian war criminals in Shambhala or white-collar artifact collectors in the lost city of Ubar. Each game is touched up with increased graphical fidelity in gameplay sections and cutscenes, a higher frame rate and improved shooting and grenade throwing mechanics.

The original Uncharted games contain some of the best cinematic set pieces in gaming — there’s a simple thrill in climbing trains suspended over cliffs and escaping from the wreckage of a falling cargo plane. The trilogy’s level design is linear, but never forces the player on rails enough to steal away the sense of exploration and adventure so integral to treasure hunting. The Nathan Drake Collection might focus more on running and gunning than world-class puzzle solving, but it’s the closest you’ll get to an Indiana Jones game on the PS4 (the recent Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is only available for ninth-gen consoles like the PS5).

Release Date: Oct. 9, 2015
Genre: Cinematic action-packed third-person shooter
Developer: Bluepoint Games

Square Enix isn’t just paying tribute to their most influential JRPG of all time with Final Fantasy VII Remake. The game instead plays with the classic game’s plot, serving as a pseudo-sequel and meta-retelling of old events at the same time. As Cloud Strife and his allies in the eco-terrorist group Avalanche fight tooth and nail against the Shinra megacorporation’s pollution of the planet’s lifestream, mysterious Whispers appear to keep the story on the rails when it begins to veer off the path of the original game.

Riffing on the turn-based battles of older Final Fantasy games, Remake has Active Time Battles, which allow players to swap between party members in real-time third-person action. If a more tactical approach becomes necessary, players can slow the battle to a crawl as they access menus and queue up actions. The new system is a hybridization of strategy and hack-and-slash gameplay, accessible to fans of both genres. 

By design, Remake is a great jumping on point for new players and Final Fantasy VII veterans alike — one where no one truly knows what will happen by the end of the final installment in the trilogy. Just know that you’ll have to upgrade to a PS5 to experience the middle chapter of the remake trilogy, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Release Date: April 10, 2020
Genre: Hybridized hack-and-slash and turn-based JRPG
Developer: Square Enix Business Division 1

The grand achievement of this racing game is being realistic enough to make the average Joe feel like a pro racer while requiring none of the driving skills required by more hardcore simulators. Gran Turismo 7 is all about honing course times, perfecting turns and corners and unlocking a massive stable of vehicles to complete tracks even faster. This isn’t a realistic racer, but it’s not for arcade fanatics either.

There’s a satisfying personal arc that every Gran Turismo 7 player will undergo. Starting with 20-year-old cars, drivers need to prove themselves on the track completing challenges to earn licenses and money to unlock flashier vehicles. That progress starts to snowball as more of the 526 cars become available. Once you collect ’em all, you begin to feel like a master of the circuit.

Release Date: March 4, 2022
Genre: Semi-realistic racing sim
Developer: Polyphony Digital Inc.

In many ways, Monster Hunter: World was a fresh beginning for an established series. Hunters traveled to the New World, an unpopulated continental landmass filled to the brim with dangerous monsters to hunt. The Research Commission has a vested interest in studying this land and its beasts, which leaves you to cleave through them until you’re strong enough to take on the baddest monsters on the island.

Gearing up through crafting and upgrading new weapons and armor pieces has always been one of the core gameplay loops of the Monster Hunter franchise, but World makes it easier to choose your own niche by lowering the barrier to entry for each individual class of equipment. New players get to try out an entire arsenal of basic weapons — from the straightforward great swords and hammers to the more eclectic bowguns and hunting horns — before deciding what they want to specialize in. A more forgiving introduction to the arsenal makes it much easier to fill a role in a co-op hunting party and get to work hunting down the island’s ferocious foes.

Release Date: Jan. 26, 2018
Genre: Co-op role-based action RPG
Developer: Capcom

A subversion of third-person samurai hack-and-slashing, Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Tsushima places players in the shoes of Jin Sakai — a warrior who trades his honor for the lives of his countrymen. When the Mongols invade Tsushima Island, Jin finds that taking them on in face-to-face combat spells certain death. Instead, he becomes the titular ghost, adopting stealthy guerilla tactics that might just be enough to break down the foreign occupation of his homeland.

Ghost of Tsushima is beautifully cinematic, balancing brutal fight choreography with more peaceful moments. Riding a steed through the falling petals of cherry blossom trees and hot springs haikus are as integral to the experience as airborne assassinations. Action RPG players will find Ghost of Tsushima easily approachable, and the narrative tension between familial honor and winning the fight is compelling. You’ll rarely find a game that looks or plays much better than Ghost of Tsushima on the PS4.

Release Date: July 17, 2020
Genre: Historical third-person stealth adventure
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions

Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to 2017’s inventive open world adventure Horizon Zero Dawn (also on PS4), drops Aloy into new untamed frontiers, teeming with new warring human factions, advanced tech and many, many robo dinosaurs. In order to save the planet’s biosphere, it’s up to our heroine to find a working backup of GAIA — an artificial intelligence capable of complex planetary-level feats of engineering. Failing ecosystems might have to take a backseat to more pressing problems, however, as Aloy finds a new group of humans with weapons, armor and a colonial mindset she’s never encountered before.

Forbidden West lets you take on the story at your leisure, offering a new open world with many activities, side quests and collectibles to find, complete and collect. Player autonomy is a key component to making combat situations feel fresh and dynamic. As you earn experience points and expand skill trees, you can make Aloy specialize in melee or ranged combat, trapping, stealth or machine mastery. Horizon Forbidden West is an action RPG that allows players to reimagine Aloy as a mighty warrior or a fearsome assassin as she carves her path across the world.

Release Date: Feb. 18, 2022
Genre: Sci-fi action role-playing game
Developer: Guerrilla Games