After years of speculation and anticipation, The PlayStation 5 finally goes on sale today, November 10. And while the PS5 hardware looks extremely impressive, new consoles aren’t much without a solid lineup of launch titles for people play right out the gate. And with so many great exclusives available on Sony’s new console, we expect players to fiercely debate the best PS5 games for years to come.
Thankfully, there are more than a few PS5 games that seem like they’ll be worthy of your money. This isn’t always the case with launch titles, which often just serve as a buffer until the real wave of heavy-hitters arrives a year later. While it’s worth noting that all of the PS5 launch titles will be available on the PS4, and some will be available on the Xbox Series X, all of these will take advantage of the PS5’s unique features in different ways.
Some have designed their gameplay around the PS5 DualSense controller, while others take advantage of the PS5’s ability to render graphics in 4K and HDR at 60 frames per second, with ray-tracing lighting effects turned on.
We can’t be 100% sure how most of these games will pan out, since few have gotten the chance to play them in advance. However, these are the best PS5 games we’re most excited about playing this month. Keep scrolling to find out which ones made our list.
1. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
The 2018 release of Spider-Man ended up being one of the PS4’s best games ever in the console’s six-year lifespan (and one of the best superhero games ever), so it’s not unreasonable to have high hopes for the sequel, which is built on the same open-world game engine as its predecessor. In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you take control of the title character, who is the latest character to assume the Spider-Man identity, as he takes out waves of baddies in the middle of the holidays. Like the original, you are free to explore New York City as you swing through the skies, but this time, the action unfolds at 60 frames per second, and the graphics are enhanced by the PS5’s ray tracing capabilities, which allow for incredible lighting effects. Early reviews have indicated this is more than a worthy follow up, and this is shaping up to be a Day 1, must-buy game for PS5 owners. And if you missed out on the 2018 Spider-Man game, buying the Ultimate Edition of Miles Morales will let you play both with gorgeous next-gen visuals.
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2. Demon’s Souls Remake
Over the span of the 2010s, the Souls series of games slowly grew from cult classics to having an outsized influence on so many games that it now has an entire genre of games — Soulslikes — named after it. While Dark Souls and Dark Souls II soak up most of the spotlight, 2009’s Demon’s Souls was the game that got the ball rolling and it’s exciting to see this entry get the remake treatment. This medieval-themed action RPG series has you running through castles, dungeons, churches and abandoned towns as you encounter towering enemies and monsters which need to be slayed.
What sets this series apart is the excruciatingly difficult combat, which requires a whole lot of skill and precision, and strips you of all your experience when you die. But it is also fair, and as such, the more time you put in mastering the mechanics, the more your ability to conquer the game will grow. While the original developers FromSoftware won’t be working on this remake, we have faith that Bluepoint Studios can deliver the goods, based on the fact that its founders worked on the very very excellent Metroid Prime games in the 2000s.
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
At this point the Call of Duty format is pretty established: you’re guaranteed to get a war-themed, first-person-shooter with a single-player campaign and team-based multiplayer. None of this is really going to change with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but the series has been so consistently quality that it doesn’t need to do more than offer incremental improvements and refinements with each new iteration. As the title implies, this installment will put you smack dab in the waning days of the Cold War as you move through communist capitals such as Moscow, East Berlin and Hanoi. While the development of this game did encounter some significant hiccups during the development process, it is in the hands of two experienced developers, Treyarch and Raven, which should prevent the franchise from falling into a rut.
4. Sackboy’s Big Adventure
Sackboy does not have the name recognition of Nintendo’s all-conquering mascot, Mario. But he, like the Mushroom Kingdom Plumber, has made numerous appearances in the Little Big Planet series of platforming games which Sony often uses to showcase the new and innovative features of its consoles. This time around, Sackboy is getting a whole game named after him, and this adventure will focus more on the single-player story, and less on the world creation experiences. But you can still expect Sackboy: A Big Adventure to feature clever gameplay built on top of a cutting-edge physics engine. Plus we’re excited to try out some of the control mechanics which take full advantage of the new PS5 DualSense controller, including the haptic resistance effects provided by the L and R triggers.
5. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
Like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla doesn’t reinvent the wheel used by the Assassin’s Creed games before it, but that’s not a bad thing since the franchise is one of the gold standards of open-world adventure games. But where Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey took you through the universe of ancient Greece and focused more on epic boss battles rather than actually assassinations, Valhalla heads north as you jump into the middle of the medieval Viking expansion across Europe and early gameplay footage suggests this go-around will be a bit more true to its title when it comes to combat. On top of all that, the graphics look beautiful and seem up to the task of taking advantage of that powerful PS5 hardware. We have no doubt that this will become one of the best PS5 games of all time, and we can’t wait to start playing.
6. Bugsnax
If you need more reasons to play Bugsnax above and beyond the fact that the game is called BUGSNAX, then here’s one: You run around an island trying to feed its famished residents by identifying and catching creatures which are “half-bug, half snack” and give special powers to anyone who eats them. Here’s another: It’s kind of a weird mix between a first-person walking sim, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon. If that’s really not enough, here’s the coup de grace: UK pop group Kero Kero Bonito contributed to the soundtrack and it sounds catchy as hell. If the PS5 is going to have a surprise hit from its launch lineup, our money is on Bugsnax.