The best PlayStation 5 games can be a little hard to suss out, and that’s because this console generation is weird. It’s been almost there years since the PlayStation 5 came out, and some of its biggest games are still coming out for the PlayStation 4. In fact, the PS5 can natively play any PlayStation 4 game, so for most people there’s no real clear distinction between a PS4 and a PS5 game these days. It’s becoming more useful to simply talk about a PlayStation ecosystem instead of splitting it up by the specific console name, like the industry always did in the past.
Of course that overlooks the substantial differences between the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 4. The newer box is a more powerful machine, and I don’t know if there’s been a case yet of a game released for both systems where the PS5 version isn’t obviously superior. And PS4 games also tend to look and run better on the PS5 than on the PS4, so it’s a no-brainer to upgrade if you can.
Since every PlayStation 4 game is also a PlayStation 5 game, a list like this one gets a little complicated. I could just republish our list of the best PlayStation 4 games, with a small handful of true PS5 exclusives sprinkled in, but that’d be both lazy and boring (and I can only afford to be one of those at a time, dammit). So here’s what we’re going to do: our list of the best PlayStation 5 games will only consider games that have official, dedicated PlayStation 5 versions. Whether it’s a PS5 exclusive, a recent game released on both consoles, or an older game that has a remaster or port specific to the PS5, we’re only looking at games that have had a legitimate PS5 release. That cut the field down a bit, and made it easy to land on this top 30.
So let’s get to it: These are the best PlayStation 5 games today.
30. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 remasters the first two games in the iconic series, updating all the levels from the original games and featuring both the original skaters and new ones. If you’ve been hoping a skating game could recapture the look and feel of those old classics, well, here you go. When I picked up the controller it was like no time had passed. I haven’t played the warehouse level from the very first game in literally decades, and yet it all came back to me immediately once I put thumb to stick.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 isn’t mere nostalgia. It’s a revival. It exhumes a true classic but roots it deeply in the modern world and not in some idealized version of its past. It doesn’t try to hide or ignore the changes of the last 20 years. And that’s one reason it’s one of the best games of 2020.—Garrett Martin
29. Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
Death Stranding is unforgiving, and rarely fun, but I love it.
With every step I can feel myself pushing against the game’s systems, wobbling slowly towards my objective with way too many kilograms on my back. At its worst, the game can feel uncomfortably isolating as you take to the mountains by yourself, trying to manage orders through a tiny, overcomplicated menu and please every NPC. But shortly into the game you realize you’re never really alone, and that makes the experience way less taxing.
NPCs who have been cut off from society will send you emails talking about their lives, what snacks they like, and thanking you profusely for your help. They give you a lot of likes if you deliver their orders quickly, and they exchange some banter whenever you drop off a load. These little things make you feel more connected to Death Stranding’s strange world and its inhabitants, and give you more incentive to do your job. Everything sucks, but you’re helping, and that’s a fantastic feeling. Empathy is what powers Death Stranding. And you can especially see that with the way players can interact with each other through the game’s subtle online features.—Funké Joseph
28. Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Chicory is filled with contemplative moments on the purpose of art and how it relates to the mental and spiritual health of the artist. The protagonist soon falls into the dangerous pit of comparing themself to other artists—previous wielders, their sister (a talented artist in school for her craft, while they’re just a novice), and others aspiring to become the wielder someday. There’s a lot of doubt that comes with being “the chosen one” here, and it’s even more salient given the wielder can step down at any time and pass The Brush to whoever they want. It’s enough to make the player question their own biases about art; do they value education and skill over enthusiasm? What is the function of art if it’s grown to only make us unhappy?—Austin Jones
27. Cocoon
Beyond its visual strengths, one of Cocoon’s most fascinating aspects is how its mechanics amplify the mind-expanding qualities evoked by its aesthetics. Just as you’re getting a read on certain repetitive, game-y patterns, such as when a monster encounter or additional power are likely to materialize, things veer off course as the puzzles become increasingly interesting. As its challenges become more complex, they also become increasingly based around cosmic proportions, causing us to feel the odd metaphysics of this space slide around in our gray matter as we undergo a miniature metamorphosis. It’s a genuinely cool effect that feels like the underlying purpose of this endeavor.—Elijah Gonzalez
26. Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West proves the open world genre doesn’t have to be as creatively bankrupt as it currently is, even while sticking close to the genre’s conventions. With the right focus, the right setting, and the right storytelling, a game can remain in thrall to a familiar format and still feel inspired. It isn’t a game that will surprise you or make you rethink the possibilities of what games can do, but it’s proof that games can still be really fun even if they don’t try anything new, and that’s something we don’t often see from big budget corporate games like this one.—Garrett Martin
25. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a narrative-oriented life-sim that thoughtfully handles its wide range of ideas, full of sharp commentary and earnestly portrayed characters. As a member of the first generation raised on a distant planet, you witness political tumult and the dangers of your new home as you grapple with the universally awkward experience of growing up. Although its colorful aesthetic may make it seem like a “wholesome game,” it fully engages with the perils of its setting while still communicating the warmth of its characters and their relationships. It envisions what a better future can look like, rendering a post-capitalist commune where its characters question Earth’s regressive practices, but it avoids devolving into utopianism by grappling with the moral ambiguities of this colonial project, as well as the ever-present threat of right-wing reactionism. While its deckbuilding elements become a little stale by its conclusion, it foregrounds substantive choices that directly impact its characters’ fates, placing you at the center of political strife and interesting sociological questions. It’s thoughtful, kind, and just about everything I value in science fiction.—Elijah Gonzalez
24. Stray
Stray absolutely understands what it’s like to be a cat—at least from a human’s perspective. This cat will scratch on rugs, walls, and furniture. This cat will nonchalantly knock glasses, vases, and even open cans of paint off shelves. This cat will get its head stuck in paper bags, hang out in empty boxes, or idly swat balls back and forth, if you want it to. This cat will even jump onto a table in the middle of a game of dominoes, knocking the pieces all over the floor. It’ll also purr and meow, rub itself lovingly against the legs of those it likes, and even snuggle up against a robot as it takes a nap. Stray captures the mischief, aloofness, and sweetness of a cat, while also uncannily recreating the way they look and move.—i>Garrett Martin
23. Cult of the Lamb
From the very moment Cult of the Lamb begins, players embark on a rollicking, deceptively cute, but ultimately sinister journey through the lands of the Old Faith, and it never lets up. Within seconds of gaining control of the game, the player is executed for being a potential vessel for The One Who Waits, a god who’s been bound by chains. This fallen god saves the player before charging them, a literal sacrificial lamb, with taking up a crown and restoring them to power. From there, players engage in a lot of frankly dubious behavior, indoctrinating dissidents of the Old Faith into a cult and deciding how best to exploit them.
Cult of the Lamb’s greatest strength might be its honesty. Action games are about this absolute physical dominance over other things and people around you, and management sims have always been about pulling on threads and watching systems big and small do your bidding. In a sense, Cult of the Lamb is this wholly self-aware marriage of two distinct, but intrinsically tied, genres about the order of things, and just immediately inserts you at the top of that hierarchy, laying it all bare. It drops all pretenses and weaves conquest and violence of various forms (spiritual, physical, and systemic) into its systems and simple story very satisfyingly. At the end of the day, your cult leader is little but an avatar for destruction masquerading as a hero. How much more of a videogame could you be at that point? And for that frankness alone, Cult of the Lamb is more than deserving of high marks.—Moises Taveras
22. Deathloop
At the end of the day, the loop is all that matters. Deathloop leaves it all out on the table, reconstructing the immersive sim a few different ways in order to pull you under. Luckily for the game, it’s a damn marvel and works like a charm. While I can nitpick about Deathloop’s shortcomings, I’d rather just point you to a game that’s a joy to play, confident in itself, touts two wonderful Black leads, looks wonderful, and rewards you for thinking outside the box. While it doesn’ quite feel like an evolution of the formula, it’s almost assuredly Arkane’s most feature-complete and refined take on it. Deathloop is countless things, and most of them are great.—Moises Taveras
21. The Pathless
Games should have secrets. They should feel like worlds that exist outside of the game and your presence in it, like something you’ve surreptitiously trespassed upon, and that, at best, are ambivalent towards your existence. The Pathless creates that feeling as well as Breath of the Wild, Demon’s Souls, or any of Team Ico’s games. This mythic adventure is set in a land on the cusp of apocalypse, in a battle between a benevolent god and a self-proclaimed godslayer, and trusts you and your eagle companion to sift through the ashes of its civilization to find a way to save it. There’s no violence outside of boss battles, and no threat of death to worry about. It’s built on movement and exploration, with your character slicing through the countryside as quickly as possible, or gliding through the air as your eagle carries you, while searching through decaying temples and fortresses for the tools you need to beat back Armageddon. If there’s anything to criticize about The Pathless, it’s that it’s maybe a little too linear—a little too similar to an Ubisoft game, moving from tower to tower to unlock the next step in the story. That doesn’t lessen its impact, though, or its beauty. This is one of the best games of the last few years, and definitely one of the best PlayStation 5 games.—Garrett Martin
20. Hitman 3
Playing Hitman 3 feels like being thrown into a random improv scene. You’re constantly switching parts, objectives, and wardrobe, making sure never to break character before you eliminate your target. Every stage is a performance, and they’re all incredibly distinct and fun. You play as world-class executioner, Agent 47, and due to his occupation there’s a thick cloud of intensity and death that follows him around every corner. Each contract sends you to varied and visually striking locations all over the globe, setting up flexible environment-specific boundaries while simultaneously encouraging you to push against them (or even throw it all out and do it your way). Both the plot and general premise of IO Interactive’s Hitman 3 are straight-faced and sober, yet it somehow manages to be one of the funniest games I’ve played in a minute due to clever prop comedy and witty, well-written NPCs. After spending a bunch of time playing around in its charming and compact world, Hitman 3 has proven to be a well-constructed assassination sandbox full of tension, fashion, and possibility. —Funké Joseph
19. Tunic
You know what’s just full of respect? Andrew Shouldice’s Tunic. That’s what. This one-man adventure jam doesn’t go easy with its puzzles, having faith that its players will be able to think their way through every tricky scenario presented to them. It also has a deep and overt respect for ‘80s Nintendo games, specifically the original Legend of Zelda; that’s evident not just in the game’s isometric view and general environment, but also in its in-game manual, which isn’t just some mystic, sacred text the adorable fox hero has to seek out, but also a recreation of an NES-era instruction booklet. Tunic sifts through the shared experiences of our gaming past to create something new and unique enough to exist outside the easy allure of nostalgia.—Garrett Martin
18. Death’s Door
Death’s Door implicitly argues something the entertainment world at large needs to understand: Nostalgia doesn’t have to be shameless or oppressive. It doesn’t have to be the summation of a game’s (or a movie’s, or a TV show’s) ambition. It doesn’t have to be splashed all over the cover and title screen, or the full extent of the marketing campaign. Death’s Door deeply evokes the spirit of some of the most beloved games of all time, and does it well enough that anybody familiar with those legendary games will no doubt recognize and appreciate it. And it does all this with a context and presentation that makes it feel new and vital and not just like a calculated imitation of the past. It takes so much of what made the original Zelda and A Link to the Past into timeless classics, but makes them into their own. Nostalgia can be part of the package, but it shouldn’t be the whole point, and Death’s Door’s cocktail of mechanical nostalgia and narrative creativity is something we don’t see enough of in today’s IP-crazed business.—Garrett Martin
17. Ultros
Playing Ultros is gaming in a cloud of color and confusion, a perpetually exciting state of being that evokes the earliest days of videogames while still feeling ahead of its time. Between your constantly shifting relationship with your surroundings, the cryptic goals and hallucinatory interactions, the structure and action of Ultros is as psychedelic as its music and art. And that’s genuinely shocking, as few games are as fiercely devoted to the psychedelic aesthetic as this one. The bright, brilliant artwork by El Huervo channels the twisty chaos of comics legend Brendan McCarthy (who might be better known today as the co-writer and designer of Mad Max: Fury Road), uniting the abstract and the visceral (literally—guts are an omnipresent symbol throughout Ultros) to create an art style unlike any other in games. Meanwhile Ratvader’s original score captures the yawning, dramatic stillness of Popol Vuh, the ambient German rock group who soundtracked several Herzog films. El Huervo’s art and Ratvader’s music are the most obvious psychedelic signifiers in Ultros, but the game itself lives up to their mind-altering ambitions.—Garrett Martin
16. Saltsea Chronicles
In its portrayal of a society based on mutual entanglement, Saltsea Chronicles resists the temptation to sever its beautifully drawn post-disaster world from reality and make it pure fantasy. Instead, mentions of the world before — our world, it turns out — drip through. Throughout it echoes the philosophies of anarchist and socialist thinkers, as well as existing and pre-existing collectivist societies. In linking the Saltsea archipelago to our world while also making it meaningfully distinct, the game resists becoming an allegory and becomes a story in and of itself. It extends beyond being a mirror for contemporary society and instead becomes an illustration of an alternate path forward, another way we could approach the same issues of climate change and environmental devastation that make up the characters’ pasts and presents. In the same vein, Saltsea Chronicles is interested in the injustices that arise when you attempt to construct a wholly non-hierarchical society. It chooses not to structure post-Flood Saltsea as a perfect utopia, instead noting repeatedly and often the ways it fails. In my time with the game this was what impressed me the most: its commitment to realistically presenting the challenges that would be present in a society that’s nominally about fairness and mutual input. People get greedy and claim power anyway, people leverage non-hierarchy to be in control. And less maliciously, people are forced into a controlling role despite their wishes, because of other people’s expectations and desires. —Emily Price
15. Balatro
As someone who would rather play virtually any board game than a hand of poker, I was pleasantly surprised by Balatro, a roguelike deckbuilder that transforms this card game into something else entirely. Some elements are what you’d expect; you begin with a standard 52-card deck and score by putting together traditional poker hands like pairs, flushes, and straights. However, where things get interesting is that over the course of a run, you can augment your deck by replacing certain cards with others, upgrading them, collecting passive upgrades that amplify your score, and more. Instead of playing against opponents like in Texas Hold ‘Em, your goal is to build hands that score enough chips to get you through an increasingly expensive series of antes. Like any successful deckbuilding game, decision-making matters in both assembling your deck and playing it. Instead of just going by traditional poker hand strength, points are calculated by multiplying the base amount of chips your hand is worth (chip count corresponds to the card rank, i.e., 9, 10, J, Q, etc.), with the particular multiplier associated with that hand (for instance, a two pair has a x2 multiplier while a three of a kind has a x3 multiplier). Where things get busted is that you can upgrade the multipliers associated with specific hands or cards, and passive abilities add to your multiplier, which can eventually dramatically boost the number of chips you earn. You can gear your deck around certain hands, suits, or passive abilities to increase the odds of hitting big. Outside of the deckbuilding, you’re given a wide array of options and information that makes it feel tactically deep. The game counts cards to let you know the odds, has the option to discard and redraw, allows you to change the order that passive abilities activate, and has consumable items. Good deckbuilders feel fair and like they offer meaningful decisions while constructing and playing your deck. Balatro does all that while also letting you blast apart the rules of poker.—Elijah Gonzalez
14. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Most of what happens in From’s mech game Armored Core VI happens because something needs to. This is not a complex story, the themes are direct and unadorned. There are bits and pieces, information is withheld, endings leave room for speculation. But this is not a game for deep epistemological work. Etymology is explanatory, but not revelatory here. Rubicon has meaning in that From Software has at least done cursory reading of Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars. One of the first real challenges you’ll face is an unhinged, violent AC pilot named Sulla. Does this have any deep hidden meaning? No, not really. You can google it and learn all about Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix if you want. But it won’t truly deepen your understanding of Armored Core VI like every other piece of media, there is no “unlocking” done by understanding the origins of every term. Mostly things are named what they are because it suits a general theme, things need names, and some names just sound more badass than others. Rubicon, for instance, has plenty of historical significance, but mostly people invoke the word “Rubicon” (a truly uneventful river named because of the iron saturation of the riverbed) when they want to either let you know they think they’re being hard as a motherfucker, or they want to call upon the YOLO or Live Más mentality. You know what also sounds pretty hard? “Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. The die is now cast.” That last sentence is actually the translation for the third ending achievement. There. Saved you a trip to Fextralife.—Dia Lacina
13. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Sony’s excellent Spider-Man game gets a follow-up starring everybody’s new favorite Spider-Man. Miles Morales is a timelier and more human take on the webslinger than the 2018 original, and although it disappointingly doesn’t fully commit to its politics, it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable action game with a conscience. It’s also just about the perfect length for this type of game—you can probably 100% in half the time it takes to do that with the first one. If, y’know, you care about things like 100%-ing a game. Swinging through Christmastime Manhattan never gets old, especially when you have Spider-Man the Cat poking out of your backpack.—Garrett Martin
12. A Plague Tale: Innocence
This subtle, believable approach to characterization reinforces that A Plague Tale is an unusually patient and confident game. It lets its story unfold slowly, avoiding the urge to dole out increasingly elaborate set pieces with a predictable regularity. It never lets its pacing or sure-handed command of character become subservient to plot or the need for action or difficulty that’s assumed of videogames. Sometimes the notes a publisher sends game developers can be felt while playing a game—there’ll be too many action sequences, or ones that drag on for too long, or stories will feel truncated, as if a crucial plot point or bit of character development was cut out to make things move faster. That never happens with A Plague Tale, which maintains a consistent vision and pursues it at its own pace.—Garrett Martin
11. Citizen Sleeper
You can think of Citizen Sleeper as a sort of digital board game set in a sci-fi dystopia beset by end-stage capitalism and all the rampant dehumanization that entails. It’s a game about work and death where the only levity comes from the relationships we make with others—yes, the friends we made along the way, but not nearly as banal or obvious as that sounds. It questions what it means to be a person in a system that inherently subjugates personhood to corporations and wealth, and it probably won’t surprise you that the answers it lands on aren’t always the most optimistic or uplifting. Here at Paste Cameron Kunzelman described its “melancholy realism” as part of a trend alongside other story-driven games that are largely hostile to the dominance of capitalism, and it echoes the impossibility of thinking seriously about this medium, this industry, and, well, every aspect of society today without discussing the impersonal economic system that drives it all. It’s a heady RPG that respects your time and intelligence, and one of this year’s must-play games.—Garrett Martin
10. Street Fighter 6
All long-running games eventually have to figure out how to attract new players without disenchanting their fans. It’s even tougher with fighting games, and especially one as old, beloved, and rich in history as Street Fighter. Street Fighter 6 has figured out how to cater to its massive following while still welcoming new players, and then providing both with the innovation of a surprisingly deep RPG on top of the core fighting game. Whether you’ve been mixing it up in those streets for decades or never even reeled off a single hadouken before, Street Fighter 6 should be on your fight card. It’s the new standard in fighting game excellence.—Garrett Martin
9. Alan Wake II
Sam Lake reaches the apotheosis of his postmodern kick with this sequel to one of 2010’s most interesting videogames. The Remedy Entertainment head has long tried to break down the barriers between games, film, and literature in a knottier, more avant-garde fashion than the many major studios making “cinematic” games, influenced as much by Pynchon and Twin Peaks as noir or horror movies, and with Alan Wake II he’s crafted another impressive combo of commercial blockbuster and trippy experimentalism. A survival horror game that explores notions of free will, destiny, authorship, and ownership, Alan Wake II doesn’t come close to answering all of the questions it asks, but it raises them with such style, confidence, and confusion that you’ He’ll realize the answers don’t matter. It’s far from a perfect game —the investigation mechanics are inelegant, and Lake’s big narrative swings don’t always connect—but Alan Wake II does more than any other game to undermine the bullshit dichotomy between “AAA” and “indie” games. Just because a game has a budget and a large team doesn’t mean it has to be a safe, hackneyed, overly familiar genre workout.— Garrett Martin
8. Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium is a gloriously complex isometric RPG, starring a drug-addicted detective with memory issues in a town that has seen better days, that takes its cues from classics like Fallout or Wasteland. Stressing out about every last detail distracts from the tremendous depth built into the world of Disco Elysium, and I’m ready to stop over-preparing and otherwise manifesting my anxiety in videogames. If anything, it will make additional playthroughs, customized by the game’s peculiar set of character skills, an appealing possibility. I look forward to all the secrets that will soon unravel about Disco Elysium. But even better, I’m feeling comfortable with the mystery.—Holly Green
7. Astro’s Playroom
Is this a perfect game? I can’t find anything to criticize in Astro’s Playroom, the short but endlessly enjoyable platformer that comes installed on every PlayStation 5. Judged on both style and substance, Astro’s Playroom is an ideal pack-in game. It’s fun, beautiful, deeply entertaining, and also elegantly introduces the major new features of the PlayStation 5’s controller. And with its meta concept of playing entirely within the new system, while also tracking down art and items from the 26 year history of the PlayStation, it pays tribute to the company’s past and present without getting too schmaltzy or nostalgic. If you’re getting a PlayStation 5, this should be the first game you play.—Garrett Martin
6. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
The first real reason to own a PlayStation 5, Rift Apart is an embellishment on a formula that’s worked for 19 years. It’s splashy and charming. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it absolutely will dive into talking about trauma and disability, and tackle questions of belonging and imposter syndrome in ways that are simple enough to speak to children, but honest enough to resonate with adults. And at times, it manages to be surprisingly funny despite being entirely predictable, knitting trope to trope in a tapestry wrapped in more tropes. It’s a simple but surprisingly earnest and compassionate game. What carries this big flashy sci-fi romp along and helps elevate it from a simple farce is this charm and humanity. Rift Apart has the heart that Guardians of the Galaxy could never find.—Dia Lacina
5. Control: Ultimate Edition
Remedy has worked hard to unite the mysterious and the mundane since at least Alan Wake, and Control is an almost ideal distillation of that theme. At its heart is the bureaucratic exploration of the unknown and unknowable, with the player stepping into the role of the new director of a government organization devoted to classifying and controlling unexplained phenomena. It’s an enigmatic and unpredictable quest not just into a nondescript office building that grows increasingly contorted and abstract, but into the heart of a conspiracy that spans the paranormal and the prosaic, and one that ultimately seems to have little use or concern for either the player or their character. In its depiction of humanity grasping for relevance and understanding in an indifferent and impossible to understand universe we see a clear reflection of our own existence. It’s a game of uncommon wisdom and depth, and one that needs to be played.—Garrett Martin
4. Elden Ring
Elden Ring borrows—grafts, really—elements from all of of From’s Souls games together. But it’s Bloodborne that’s really the reason for this game being the open world that it is. In Chalice Dungeons we saw a purity of form that the Soulsborne micro genre was poised to capitalize on, but couldn’t quite deliver. Procedural dungeons accessed from a menu. A place where minibosses and remixes of bosses would flourish, where the skill of dungeon-delving players could be tested and rewarded repeatedly. Not necessarily a haven for more lore, but for the most stalwart of players there would be deep thematic resonance at the end. But really, sick dungeons for the sake of sick dungeons.
Elden Ring says “what if we took the lessons we learned from Chalice Dungeons…and that was the game.” An open world, after all, is only as good as the dark holes that perforate its beautiful surface, the land is only as interesting as its scars.
And these dungeons, especially the big ones, are compelling like no other. This is the apotheosis in this work—the exaltation of the dungeon designer.—Dia Lacina
3. Norco
As a Southerner I don’t really trust anybody to write about the South unless they, too, are from here—or at least have lived here long enough to truly understand what makes it great and awful in equal measure, and how the ways in which the South is actually fucked up often diverge from the ways in which outsiders think it’s fucked up. Norco, a smart narrative-driven game about the unique ways in which institutions like religion and big business have exploited the South, its people and its land throughout history, is clearly the work of people who understand this region and its fundamental defects. It’s an unflinching, occasionally surreal glimpse into an only slightly exaggerated version of Louisiana, with its mythical and allegorical flourishes only highlighting the aimless mundanity and real-life degradations of the modern South. If you only play one game from this list, make it Norco.—Garrett Martin
2. Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition
Cardboard Computer’s exploration into the mysteries of the mundane finally came to an end in early 2020, but it didn’t officially come out for the PlayStation 5 until August 2023. This magical realist adventure combines the mythological folkways of “old weird America”—here personified by a stretch of rural Kentucky that regularly phases between the familiar and unearthly—with a pointed critique of how capitalism reduces everybody to interchangeable commodities. Workers grind themselves to bones to pay off their “debt” to their employers, pharmaceutical companies basically own the doctors who prescribe their medicine, and an amiable truck driver gets lost on a routine delivery with no end in sight. It’s a beautiful bit of inspired genius that doesn’t lose anything in its console translation.—Garrett Martin
1. Hades
What makes Hades so great—and what elevates it above other roguelikes—is how it creates a consistent sense of progress even as you keep dying and restarting. Part of that is mechanical—although you lose all the boons bestowed upon you by the Greek gods after a run ends, along with other power-ups acquired during your journeys through the underworld, there are a few things you do hang on to when you return to the game’s hub world. More important than that, though, is how the game’s narrative unfolds between runs, driving you to keep playing through whatever frustration you might feel in hopes of learning more about the game’s story and characters.
Between every run in Hades your character, Zagreus, returns to his home—the palace of his father, Hades, the God of the Dead. Yep, he’s another rich kid who feels his first bit of angst and immediately starts slumming it. Here you can interact with various characters, upgrade the decor, unlock new permanent perks, and practice with the game’s small arsenal of weapons. Every time you return the characters who live here have new things to say, slowly unraveling their own storylines and deepening their relationships with Zagreus. And given that the writing in Hades is as consistently sharp and human as it’s been in all of Supergiant’s games, getting to talk to these characters alone is a reason to actually look forward to dying in this game.—Garrett Martin