The best PlayStation 5 games to play in 2023

How do you follow up a modern classic like 2019’s God of War? In the case of Ragnarok, by doing more of the same. This isn’t the sort of sequel that reinvents the wheel – after all, the previous game already covered that – but instead it’s a welcome return to the land of Norse violence and daddy issues that we all love so dearly. 

There are a few combat tweaks – options to charge up elemental attacks and a new weapon – plus extra depth to the equipment upgrades and skill trees. But really this is about telling the next part of Kratos and Atreus’s story, and that side of the game is handled with aplomb, packed with twists, turns, and emotional gut punches. 

Where the series goes from here is anyone’s guess, but if you played God of War and simply wanted more, Ragnarok has you covered. 

The latest Ratchet & Clank adventure is exclusive to the PS5 platform, and it’s not hard to see why; it’s a perfect showcase of Sony’s new hardware, with nary a loading screen in sight – a particularly impressive feat when you consider you spend much of the game jumping between different dimensions.

Picking up after the events of Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus back in 2013, Rift Apart is the perfect blend of amazing Pixar-level aesthetics, tight gameplay and an engaging storyline, but it’ll still play well even if you’ve never played a R&C title before.

The title sees the titular duo follow Dr. Nefarious into the multiverse, hopping between wildly varied open worlds in a bid to stop the comical nemesis from taking over everything.

The 15-20 hour campaign is jam-packed, and there’s reason to replay the game, with a variety of cheats and skins unlocked throughout your first playthrough. It’s still very much a Ratchet & Clank game, but considering it’s such a popular format, that’s not a bad thing. 

When the team at Guerilla Games first sat down to brainstorm Horizon Forbidden West, the follow-up to PS4 hit Zero Dawn, the first word on the whiteboard must surely have been ‘more’.

More weapons, more missions, more mechanical monsters, more unlockable skills, more crafting, even more inventory systems. This is a game that adds a lot – sometimes to a fault.

Once again playing as red-headed huntress Aloy in a post-post-apocalyptic future, you’re tasked with venturing out into the (forbidden) west to collect some MacGuffins to re-build the terraforming AI that should be running the world but has been slacking off a bit. The west mostly looks a lot like the east did really, but rendered in stunning detail thanks to the PS5’s power.

Gameplay is much the same (there’s just more of it) though improved climbing and a new swimming mechanic help Forbidden West thrive in a post-Breath of the Wild world. The robotic beasties, both large and small, are still the stars of the show, with returning favourites and some standout new additions.

When Horizon 3 inevitably rolls around it could maybe benefit from a little less – at times the clutter of abilities, upgrades, and inventories makes Forbidden West very messy – but if you want an open world to get lost in then this does the trick nicely.

FromSoftware has a reputation for particularly punishing games, hot off the heels of the Dark Souls trilogy and, more recently, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Like the rest of the games in the developer’s collection, the game is just as gorgeous and even tougher to master, but this one takes place in a brutal open world.

Far from being locked into a strict path, you can venture through the world as you see fit with very little direction compared to most open-world games filled with objective markers and other hand-holding mechanics. There’s none of that here. In fact, you’re essentially dropped in at the deep end and simply expected to survive. Classic Souls-like, amirite?

Elden Ring’s support for multiple playstyles is what shines through, with gamers able to sneak up on unsuspecting foes, blast enemies from afar with spells or simply rain down hell with their crossbows. Throw in a compelling storyline, an exceptionally well-designed open world and some of the toughest bosses we’ve come across yet and you’ve got a very challenging game that’ll really scratch the itch for those that like to be punished.

Put simply, if you liked the Dark Souls trilogy, you’re going to love what Elden Ring has to offer.

Deathloop, the latest entry from Arkane, is one of the best games available on the PS5 platform right now, blending satisfying gunplay, tactics, a gorgeous open world that changes throughout the day and, of course, plenty of swearing.

Most of that comes from protagonist Colt, who wakes up on Blackreef Island and finds himself stuck in a time loop. If your day restarted every day, you’d probably be cursing a lot too! Colt soon discovers that in order to destroy the time loop, he must kill eight Visionaries on the same day before midnight. It might sound straightforward, but those pesky Visionaries don’t stay in one place all day – and that’s where things get interesting.

It’s down to you to explore the regions of Blackreef Island at various times of day, finding out new information, gaining access to new weapons and upgrading your abilities in order to influence the Visionaries. How do you kill two visionaries when both are in different areas at the same time of day? You’ll have to put your investigative skills to the test in this thrilling FPS. 

Crucially, the gunplay feels super satisfying, and when combined with the variety of abilities, you’ll find new and creative ways to take out the increasingly aggressive inhabitants of the island. 

Would it be a new PlayStation generation without a Last of Us port? The PS3 classic was remastered for a PS4 release, and has now been remade for the PS5 – though this is mostly another graphical update.

Still, the game is a landmark classic for a reason, and with its sequel one of the PS5’s best original titles, it does feel like a bit of a treat to get to play the first again with the same level of polish.

Once again you’ll step into the shoes of the curmudgeonly Joel, tasked with transporting the teenage Ellie across a post-apocalyptic north America while overcoming other survivors, monstrous infected, and the wilderness itself.

Graphics have been overhauled everywhere, from scenery to character models, while the PS5’s SSD also massively improves loading times. Gameplay has been slightly tweaked too, with enhanced enemy AI and a couple other tricks borrowed from Part II – though don’t worry, at its core this is still the game you know and love.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human is the sequel to the 2015 hit zombie game, taking everything we liked best about the original and cranking it to the next level.

This time around you play in the shoes of Aiden, a Pilgrim that roams the infested world as a post-apocalyptic Amazon driver of sorts, on the hunt for his long-lost sister Mia. Taking place in the walled-in city of Villador, the sprawling post-apocalyptic cityscape is the last bastion of humanity – the problem is that zombies also roam the open world.

There’s unprecedented verticality in Dying Light 2’s open world – levels that Cyberpunk could only aspire to – as you climb skyscrapers, explore abandoned buildings and clear out infested metro stations. It’s here that the upgraded parkour really shines, providing a fast-paced, thoroughly enjoyable way to navigate the environment.

Combat is equally as satisfying with an ever-changing roster of melee weapons, customisable using the junk you scavenge as you explore. Want a hammer that spits fire and shocks enemies on impact? Dying Light 2 has you covered.

The story is engaging as ever, with more player decisions than I’ve seen in a game in a very long time, and these can have massive knock-on effects on the overall storyline, so you’d better pay attention.

The only annoyance is that there are huge areas of the map (viewable using binoculars on tall buildings) that are inaccessible at launch, coming in the form of paid DLC further down the line. The first, dubbed Bloody Ties, is now available following release in October 2022.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the Norse-themed open-world RPG we’ve all been waiting for, and it’s easily one of our favourite recent iterations of the Assassin’s Creed series. Jump into the fur-lined shoes of Eivor the Wolf-Kissed and head to ye olde England to forge alliances, traverse the large and varied open world and even plunder towns and monasteries in a bid to get supplies to enhance your own homestead. 

The story is engaging, with pivotal moments decided by your actions influencing the outcome of the game in unforeseen ways, and being an Assassin’s Creed title, there are plenty of side missions, puzzles to unravel, pagan gods to appease and hallucinatory dream states to explore. 

With a combination of satisfyingly brutal combat, a simplified-yet-effective weapon system, a hugely customisable character and a charming open world filled with mysteries and easter eggs that Brits in particular will appreciate (including a man chasing his pet screaming FENTON!), you’ll likely lose yourself for hundreds of hours in the gorgeous world Ubisoft has crafted.

If there’s a game that has taken 2022 by storm, it’s Stray.

As the name suggests, you hop into the shoes (or should that be paws?) of an unnamed stray cat in a post-human world. After stumbling and falling into the sewers of a walled-garden city inhabited by robots, it’s the cat-agonist’s job to find a way out – and find out what really happened in the run-down city.

The kitty character is as charming as you’d imagine, with signature feline characteristics like on-demand meowing, scratching surfaces to stretch and even knocking glasses/plates/whatever else off surfaces as you explore. Though there’s very little spoken dialogue outside of the main cutscenes, the game does a great job of conveying the stories and emotions of the city’s AI-powered residents, and through optional memories you discover, you’ll gain a better understanding of the post-human world you find yourself in.

The open-world environment is a joy to explore as a feline, with areas and paths usually out of reach of human protagonists. Filled with areas where you can cause a bit of mischief (and plenty of side quests and collectables) it’s a game that you won’t want to rush through – especially if you want all the trophies available. That’s even more true as, once you leave an area, you can’t return on the same run, so you’ll want to be 100% sure you’ve explored every nook and cranny before you move on.

It works well, though with the caveat that it’s not always clear when you’re progressing onto the next area, and that could leave 100 percenters a little frustrated.

Still, if you’re a fan of cats, robots and post-apocalyptic worlds, Stray offers something intriguing and a little bit different to most games in 2022.

Returnal will be a bit like Marmite – you’ll love it or hate it – but if you are a fan of the roguelike experience on offer, you’ll lose hours in the gorgeously detailed – yet bleak – world of Atropos.

You play as Selene, who crash-landed on an alien planet and is now stuck in a time loop, bringing her back to the scene of the crash every single time she (or you, the player) dies. It’s a tense, adrenaline-inducing game – especially in the later biomes – as enemies become more complex, deadly and unpredictable. You’re never too far from death in Returnal, and while you might be frustrated initially, you’ll soon embrace the loop. 

Each time you die, everything is randomised; the starting location, the map, the route and even the enemies you’ll encounter along the way, making it near-impossible to pre-empt gameplay even after several runs and helping keep things fresh. The story is engaging and mysterious, and you’ll have to pay attention to small details if you truly want to understand what’s going on at Atropos. 

Story and gameplay aside, Returnal is a perfect title to showcase the technological and graphical capabilities of the PS5, looking and feeling absolutely fantastic.

Capcom had a hell of a time following up Resident Evil 7, an acclaimed reinvention that somehow took the aged franchise back to its roots while simultaneously striking out in a new direction.

Village’s answer to that is to make four different Resident Evil games at once and see which sticks. 7’s protagonist Ethan Winters is back, this time stranded in the Eastern European wilderness and trying to rescue his infant daughter.

As you work through the (unexpectedly werewolf-filled) titular village you have to battle past four local lords and ladies, each of which has their own domain.

The now-infamous Lady Dimitrescu’s castle is the closest to classic Resi, but other segments include a combat-free nightmare in a doll-filled house, a puzzle-centric aquatic section, and a fight-filled slog through the floors of a zombie cyborg factory.

This isn’t quite perfect, but Resident Evil is at its best when it’s inventive, and you could never say Village isn’t that.

There was a lot of hype about Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga ahead of launch, and it’s not hard to see why. The game features all nine movies in the Star Wars franchise, with locations and characters from each film available to play.

For once, the hype was justified.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is jam-packed with not only content from all 9 movies, but a whole host of secrets and easter eggs to discover along the way. It has that signature tongue-in-cheek Lego charm, while introducing new mechanics to the longstanding formula.

For one, the latest Lego title reworks the game mechanics for a more ‘over the shoulder’ feel akin to most third-person titles, allowing you to get closer to the action and better appreciate the Lego-filled intricacies in the game’s various environments.

The shooting is very much still run-and-gun, but the new camera angle means you’ve now got the option to take cover and aim down sights for a more traditional firing experience. 

There’s also a new skill tree that’ll let you upgrade the powers and abilities of the varying classes of characters as you play, providing more of an incentive to grab the various collectables in each level as you fight your way through the Galactic Empire’s defences.

The only real downside to The Skywalker Saga is the UI; even to long-time Lego game fans, the various systems for unlocking characters, buying skill upgrades can be overwhelming at a glance. 

The Far Cry series has had a bit of a crisis in recent years, with Far Cry Primal, Far Cry New Dawn and even Far Cry 5 missing the mark, but Far Cry 6 takes things back to basics on the fictional Caribbean island of Yara.

The island is utterly gorgeous, ranging from dense forests to small villages to large cities with skyscrapers (a first for the series!), but its residents are under the thumb of dictator Anton Castillo. Every Far Cry game needs an OTT antagonist, and Castillo is exactly that, forcing the islanders to rise up against him as he desecrates the island and its residents in a bid to create his world-first cancer cure. 

The gunplay is focused around homemade weaponry, which ranges from the cool (like a flamethrower) to the outright crazy (did somebody say CD player gun?), with a great feel and slick movement keeping gunfights feeling fluid and exciting. 

Far Cry 6 doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and it can grow repetitive as you make your way across the main regions of the island to help gain support for Libertad and overthrow the dictator, but the gameplay loop is much more compelling than with recent entries in the series, and the game’s co-op makes for great multiplayer fun too. 

A remake of an obscenely difficult PS3 RPG from 2009 may not be an obvious choice for a PS5 launch title, but then not every obscenely difficult PS3 RPG from 2009 served as a precursor to the infamous Dark Souls trilogy.

This is more than just a remaster with a lavish coat of point, with plenty of quality of life fixes to ease the occasional slog of the original. It’s just as punishingly hard though, and like the Dark Souls games that followed it rewards players willing to go again, and again, and again to fight through every boss (and often even the regular enemies in-between).

No, this isn’t the best Souls game around. But thanks to some PS5 polish it’s certainly a great one, and it’s by far the prettiest.

Though No Man’s Sky had, putting it lightly, a problematic start back in 2016, developer Hello Games has continuously worked on the game for the past five years, with the game in its current state near unrecognisable compared to the original.

No Man’s Sky’s procedurally generated universe, with planet-sized planets full of unique flora and fauna rip for exploring on PS5. There’s 4K@60fps performance and DualSense support to improve the experience, and the game is ever-expanding both in terms of performance and new features via free expansions too.

There’s even multiplayer support, with a specific game mode that sends the No Man’s Sky community on timed quests in specific galaxies that mean you will bump into other explorers. In such a big universe, seeing someone else is always a memorable experience! 

It’s easily the best space-exploration game available on the platform right now, offering exceptional value for money.