Recommend me some PS5 games

Somehow, despite PS5s still being utterly unavailable, I managed to buy one today! It‘s mostly for my partner’s use, and mostly so she can play Horizon Forbidden West.

But! I have to admit, I haven't kept up with PS5 releases, given that I expected to only be able to buy one several more years into the systems's life, so I have no idea what games are available, and even less idea which games are actually good. Retails sites are pointless, since they just dump 1000 games into a pile for me to sort through, and many review sites are also next to useless, for similar reasons.

So! Somebody recommend me some good PS5 games! **_Please, only recommend games that are PS5 exclusive if possible. Also, I'd prefer either single-player games or games that have a robust single-player element._** I already have a PS4, and I've had it for years, so I'm not especially interested in buying repeats, or in buying PS4 games to play on the PS5. If there are no actual good PS5 exclusives, that's okay, feel free to tell me.

This article basically covers what your choices are. There sure aren't a lot!

Personally I'd go to bat for Gran Turismo 7 on PS5, it has great controller features. Returnal seems good. Ratchet and Clank if you know you like those kinds of games.

Pretty dry console tbh!

@“sabertoothalex”#p78253 It‘s extremely depressing! I had a moment of panic just now, that I had gone out and bought an extremely expensive thing that has very few games I couldn’t have played on PS4 already. Thanks for the link that article, you're right, it was exactly what I was looking for.

I suppose we had a similar situation back when the PS3 launched, but wowee, you sure would think they would have figured it out rather than resting on a pile of previous-gen games.

With your background/interest in STGs Returnal is definitely the one I would recommend, but I'm pretty sure you already had that one in your radar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX58Z_ct-ow

Other than that I'm of the opinion that the good PS5 games are all the PS4 games (I'm not the biggest fan of the AAA prestige Sony stuff myself). Does Astro's Playroom still come preinstalled with the console? I guess that's a good one to check out as well. Also Gran Turismo 7 has been one of my favorite games this year, somehow I keep coming back to it, but I'm doing that on my PS4.

Returnal, Ratchet and Clank and Demon's Souls are the most notable exclusives.

However, I would say that Spider-man and Miles Morales are silky as heck on PS5 if you have a 120hz compatible TV. Similarly, whilst Kena: Bridge of Spirits is on PS4 and PC, the PS5 version is _gorgeous_ and a good 20-ish hour adventure with a lovely art style that either upscales to 4K targeting 60fps or is native 4K at 30fps depending on your preferences. All three of those games I played during the early days of my post-surgery recovery and I enjoyed them all a lot.

Other than that you don't have a lot of choice in terms of genuine exclusives. As @"sabertoothalex"#p78253 said, GT5 is supposed to be good but a lot of games are cross-gen, for better or for worse. Some games have been enhanced for PS5 but it's kinda potluck as to which ones have or not. That said, Returnal and Demon's Souls will last a long time, and Rachet and Clank, whilst relatively short in comparison is a genuine technical showcase for the hardware.

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@“Karasu”#p78251 If there are no actual good PS5 exclusives, that’s okay, feel free to tell me.

Well... I wouldn't say that there are _none..._ but... it's pretty slim pickings, what with the last minute push to squeeze out a little more juice from the PS4 by making some things cross generational even if they weren't going to be initially (thinking of the upcoming _God of War: Ragnarok_ specifically here but it does make me wonder if that was just one of the most high profile ones to openly admit that that's what they were going to do).

Sidenote, I won't recommend PS4 games, but I will point out that playing PS5 versions or cross gen ports or whatever it might be is a pretty dang pleasant experience. The SSD is a total paradigm shift, so if there is any points of interest in the library, you can basically consider your PS4 obsolete. There are a few weird exceptions to this, of course... if I remember correctly, there is something up with, I think, the performance of the _Final Fantasy VII: Remake,_ where it is or perhaps was at one point better to play the PS4 version even on a PS5, or something? I dunno. I'm sure searching for "[game name] PS5 or PS4 version" would bring stuff like that up.

Anyway, on to the games that I have played which are strictly PS5 exclusives. I can't really say these are recommendations, at least not strong ones. It's a start, though.

If it's still fresh out of the box, don't skip _Astro's Playroom._ It's enough of a cute little diversion that it will make you forget it's also an impressive tech demo. It's a baby game (complimentary), and hilariously masturbatory towards the PlayStation as an institution. Seriously, if you have even minor sentimentality about PlayStation, be prepared to be skillfully emotionally manipulated about how you Love Product. Make no mistake though, it's 100% checking out in terms of seeing what PS5 games will hopefully be more often like in the future. It's got some _graphics_ and it loves to show off the tech. It's also a great way to experience all of the fun little tricks the Dualsense is capable of too. Price is right, for sure.

The first unique game I played as a PlayStation 5 exclusive was _Returnal._ I played it closer to launch so my feedback comes with the caveat that it might be better now, but despite initially thinking it was quite impressive I was kind of iffy on the overall experience by the end of it. On the positive note, it too has some clever applications of the PS5's new tech. For instance, I wasn't really sold on haptic feedback being anything but a gimmick from _Astro's Playroom_ until I really got how it was using different patterns and strengths to provide useful gameplay information (please ignore that this is what haptic feedback means and is the first thing that comes up when you google the phrase). You will appreciate that SSD in a game like this with a lot of repetition and trial and error as well. I personally felt that the overall formula with the gameplay loop and the narrative failed to sustain my interest over the finish line, but I got close enough that I would still say it's a worthwhile experience and would still recommend it to anyone who thought the premise (rogue-lite 3rd person shooter) seemed like it'd be up their alley. Especially if you can get it for cheaper than I did...

The only other PS5 exclusive I've played was the _Ratchet & Clank_ game. It's a _Ratchet & Clank_ game, if you've played any of them you'll know what to expect, for better or worse. It's probably one of the better ones but it's still in many ways that same PS2 baby game (complimentary...sorta). One thing it definitely got tho--REALLY purty graphics. Let me tell you... these are some good graphics. And the graphics? Well now. There's frames, per _second._ The rays? Traced. Ambience? Occluded. Aliases? Anti'd. Now that I think about it, it's basically something that is weirdly close to a midway point between _Astro's Playroom_ and _Returnal._ Sci fi 3rd person shooter graphically impressive baby game. There's even a funny little robot!

Thanks folks! I feel much better given this info! There‘s also some upcoming stuff that looks interesting. I think I’ll be alright, whew.

Yeah, to go further on the question of recommending the PS5 as a console to own at the present moment rather than just the games, I‘d still say yes, if it’s something you can afford reasonably enough (at the price you‘d pay at a retail story only, mind you… it’d be completely unjustifiable at scalper prices), and either haven‘t too thoroughly exhausted the PS4 library and/or you’re willing to wait for some of the bigger exclusives on the horizon.

There was perhaps a short window of time when "cross gen" basically meant "eighth generation game but if you play it on a ninth generation console maybe it'll run at 4K/60fps or have some nicer textures," but I think that window is or will definitely close by the end of the year, and cross gen from here on out means "ninth generation game but if you play it on an eighth generation console be grateful you're even getting 30fps". Perhaps we're partially talking about the banality of the cycles of videogame console generations in general at this point, but like, I bet you a Double Bubble that the NFT exec at Squeenix would have chosen to make _Final Fantasy VII: Remake_ a Playstation 5 launch title and indefinitely exclusive to the PS5 if he could.

Anyway, most importantly, it's a beautiful platform to play whatever you can play on it--high performance home consoles finally getting SSDs is worth the price of admission in of itself. 2013 might not have been the year to start putting SSDs into home consoles as their main storage drives, but by 2020 that felt way overdue.

Not to mention, I wouldn't be surprised if price drops end up being at least a bit slower and/or more modest than usual, so, if you know you're gonna get one, the 50-100 you might end up saving from waiting for a price drop and a console pushing exclusive or whatever is at least in my opinion a decent value for the often excellent user experience as well as at least a few decent exclusives already available. I'm pretty optimistic for this generation as a whole, though, so I'm biased.

I had been generally excited about ninth gen, at first, but I‘ve honestly gotten worn out by the cycle of them just not being humanly available for the last year and a half. I’ve been pretty vocal elsewhere on IC about being disgusted over it!

I felt this way about the PS3 too, and I eventually ended up playing a bunch of great games on it, so I have no doubt I'll like whatever games inevitably come to it. Just to name two, I'm sure I'll get the Mass Effect/Dragon Age sequels that are upcoming! It's just tough to swallow how it's such an expensive thing with so few (also expensive) games available.

@“Karasu”#p78280 The situation with scarcity is certainly disgusting for a whole lot of reasons, but personally, I choose to see it as at least a pyrrhic victory when someone who at least eventually will want to play games on the goddamn thing manages to get one at retail price. Maybe it's still excessive in most individual cases, but it also definitively means a scalper isn't getting it.

I‘ve just remembered as well that Soul Hackers 2 is out in a couple of months and given that it’s not getting a Switch release I get the impression that the target systems were PS5 and Series X. That‘s only speculation, of course, but it’s a theory that I would place a reasonably safe bet on.

@“LeFish”#p78282 It‘s also coming to PS4 and Xbox One so I’m actually assuming it's gonna be more along the lines @Gaagaagiins said where those are the targets and the 9th gen versions(and PC probably) are the beefier options.

@“Gaagaagiins”#p78281 By the way, yeah, I just got it from Best Buy, so fortunately no scalper was involved!

Oh, and as an aside, I moved countries a few years ago and I'm just now discovering that PSN accounts are region locked, with no official workaround, so that's awesome! I guess I'll just be creating a new account for the PS5 and then adding my old US PSN account so I can play backward compatible PS4 stuff (this isn't a request for help, I've got it well in hand, don't worry). I mean, even Nintendo let me change regions on my US account, so I’m not sure what Sony’s deal is here.

Astro‘s Playroom is a delight, so at least there’s that!! But there's definitely less to distinguish the modern consoles than ever before. it is an interesting time - in a very uninteresting way!

I really want to suggest Sifu even though it be PS4/5 and PC. I haven‘t played it yet, but it’s a single player brawler which is what I wanted Absolver to be (developer Sloclap's previous game) with big nods to Hong Kong action. It seems to run best on PS5: locked 60fps with no stutter and absurdly minimal load times. Alex and Audi did an episode on it over at Digital Foundry.

I‘ll also recommend Miles Morales and Astro’s Playroom. The former I had fun playing in chunks trying out the different output settings to see what the higher resolution or frame rate options actually did. I played the first level of Astro‘s when I got my PS5 in January and coincidentally just started it back up again last night and man it’s just a cool museum of PlayStation stuff with fun platforming.

I'll also throw Ghostwire: Tokyo into the mix too. It definitely got to a point where I was over the open world collecting and side quests but I had a significantly great time with it overall. The vibe of the game is fun to live in and I appreciated all of the different yokai depictions.

I love how this a forum so niche that you can find someone with the username dracula and a funny meeple as a profile pic lol

I really really enjoyed Ghostwire Tokyo. The story is paper thin and the combat doesn't have much variety but you get to explore Shibuya in first person and it looks amazing.

@“Chopemon”#p78378 Agreed. I never ended up finishing it because I got tired of hitting R2 over and over. Still, the stuff that you get to feel with the DualSense always ended up making me happy I was playing it.

Tried Astro’s Playroom briefly this afternoon and dang, it’s well done for a pack-in! It’s the sort of thing that I would have expected them to try and sell separately in the PS4 era!

Also likely to pick up Returnal and (not PS5 exclusive, I know) Tales of Arise. I’m a sucker for Tales games (often to my detriment).

Also discovering that retail price for PS5 games in Canada is $89.99, lol ouch.