15 best PS5 games for every kind of player, from Deathloop to Demon’s Souls

Best: Free PS5 game

Don’t be fooled into thinking Astro’s Playroom is a demo with ideas above its station. Coming pre-installed for free on every PS5, this imaginative platformer is a nostalgia-drenched adventure through PlayStation history, from the demo CD bundled with the original PS1 to modern classics of the PS4 era.

A love letter to a 27-year legacy, Astro’s Playroom serves as both an introduction to the features of the PS5’s tactile new DualSense controller, as well as an old-school, full-featured and inventive platformer in its own right.

Best: Action game

One way to improve Spider-Man? Ditch Peter Parker and replace him with his awkward teenage protégé, Miles Morales. Insomniac’s 2018 game broke a long-standing series curse by being very good indeed: an open-world action adventure that made you feel, emphatically, like you were web-slinging between skyscrapers and thwacking crooks.

A next-generation spin-off, Spider-Man: Miles Morales refines the original’s formula. This is a streamlined adventure with a more focused story, far less busy work and an endearingly clumsy protagonist still getting to grips with his powers. The city looks stunning too, dressed up in fancy modern ray-tracing effects that make the real world seem unacceptably bleak.

Deathloop is a freestyle assassination game with a Groundhog Day style time-warping mechanic. You’re trapped on a mysterious island, and doomed to repeat the same 24 hours over and over again until you can figure out a way to kill eight VIPs before the stroke of midnight.

Doing this requires learning your targets’ schedules over the course of your repeated failed attempts, and using detective work and careful planning to pull off your murder-spree and escape the loop. Engrossing, beautifully designed and full of character, Deathloop is truly the PS5’s first great exclusive.

Best: Action RPG

A complete remake of From Software’s infamously punishing action RPG, Demon’s Souls on PS5 is a showcase of what the new console is capable of. The oppressive gothic architecture, yawning arches and festering dungeons of this cult classic look spectacular on the new hardware, while remaining faultlessly faithful to the aesthetic and vibe of the original game.

Challenging to the point of repelling new players, Demon’s Souls gets away with it by being as rewarding as it is difficult to master. Once it clicks, and so long as you don’t hurl your DualSense controller out of the nearest window, you unlock an enormously gratifying adventure through a dark fantasy world.

Best: Stealth game

A freestyle assassination game in which you can approach your target however you please, Hitman 3 plays out like an elaborate, Groundhog Day-style puzzle. Though there are only a handful of levels, each one is an interactive play with an enormous cast of wandering characters who react to your actions.

You might be infiltrating the upper floors of a Dubai skyscraper dressed as a janitor in one mission, and disguising yourself as the detective investigating an Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery in the next. There are hundreds of ways to reach your objectives, and Hitman 3 invites and rewards the player’s experimentation.

Best: Open-world adventure

Set in the 9th century during the Viking invasion of Britain, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has you cavorting about the unspoilt English countryside bothering Anglo-Saxons and pillaging unsuspecting monasteries. There’s a vast amount to see and do, from managing your growing settlement to raiding towns and lopping the heads off local kings.

Also launched for the last-generation Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, Ubisoft’s open-world adventure looks stunning on PlayStation 5, with richly detailed environments, higher resolutions, upgraded lighting effects and even bloodier decapitations.

God of War is a series that’s matured with its fans. What began in 2005 as a bloody escapade through Greek mythology in which you, a loincloth-wearing Spartan warrior named Kratos, must track down and violently murder a series of ancient gods with a magic axe, is now all of that plus a thoughtful exploration of fatherhood to boot.

This is one of the PS4’s best games, upgraded on PS5 with silky smooth 60fps refresh rates and pin-sharp, 4K resolution. The series has never looked better.

Best: Horror game

The latest entry in the long-running survival horror series, Resident Evil Village further departs from its old-school zombie heritage and continues in the vein of the immersive, first-person horror experience that made Resident Evil 7 such a huge success.

Set in a fictional Romanian village overrun by a bunch of absolute creeps, the game is part Island of Doctor Moreau, part What We Do In The Shadows, and part abandoned ghost train at a local amusement park that had to be shut down over safety concerns. The ever-present threat of the game’s nightmarish cast of vampires, werewolves and monsters that resemble the contents of a butcher’s wheelie bin make for a claustrophobic and thrilling adventure.

Best: Third-person shooter

A third-person shooter set in a paranormal world that could have slithered from the dreams of a napping David Lynch, Control: Ultimate Edition is set entirely within the confines of the headquarters of an off-books government organisation, tasked with investigating everyday objects that have gained supernatural powers.

The bureaucratic backdrop of grey cubicles, copy machines and filing cabinets serves to compound all of the interdimensional weirdness going on. In combat, furniture and chunks of debris become kinetic, hurled around by psychic forces in an impressive demonstration of particle physics, which are further enhanced by the PS5’s crisp 4K resolution and smooth frame rates.

Best: Roleplaying game

Yakuza: Like A Dragon is the most approachable entry in the series so far, ditching one long-running protagonist in favour of an entirely new – and even weirder – cast of characters. Set in a fictional Tokyo prefecture, it follows the story of a low-level gang member sent to prison for 18 years who attempts to reintegrate into a modern criminal lifestyle following his release.

Like A Dragon is a blend of turn-based street fighting, weird mini-games and goofy, dialogue-heavy roleplaying in which you’re throwing bicycles at drunk businessmen one moment and carrying out missions for a gang of nappy-wearing adult babies the next. It defies summary. Knowingly strange and wantonly convoluted, there really isn’t any other game like it.

Hades is a fast-paced action game in which you die over and over again, each time becoming incrementally more powerful and better equipped to face the game’s clever shapeshifting dungeons and novel enemies.

It tells the story of the son of Hades, embarking on a suicide mission to escape the depths of hell, and abetted by a pantheon of friendly gods who give you random new powers each time you play. This makes each new attempt feel fresh and interesting, and, combined with the pixel-perfect controls, rewarding skill-based combat and brilliant characters, forms one of the best PS5 games around.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a colourful, funny and explosively energetic platformer that takes full advantage of the PS5’s unique features to create one of the console’s freshest feeling experiences.

The haptic feedback of the DualSense controller makes weapons and abilities come alive in your hands, while fast loading speeds enable incredible instant transitions between different stages. Great for players of all ages, it’s a spectacular introduction to the PS5.

Best: Co-op multiplayer game

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a kid-friendly platformer set in a meticulous, handcrafted world of corrugated cardboard, fuzzy felt patches and hot-glued buttons, as though you’ve just been plunged headfirst into an arts and crafts box by a ruthless assailant.

A magical co-op adventure for up to four players, Sackboy is best played with a buddy or three, where you can either work together to pummel enemies and solve each level’s series of pleasingly designed puzzles, or be a nuisance by hurling random bits of furniture at your friends. Joyously soundtracked and with a surprising cast of celebrity voices, Sackboy is gloriously fun no matter how you choose to play it.

Best: Roguelike game

The first major PS5 exclusive, Returnal divided opinion at launch. Housemarque’s sci-fi shooter is an obscenely difficult ‘roguelike’ (a sub-genre of RPGs in which levels are randomly generated and dying sends you right back to the very beginning of the game) with a steep learning curve that frustrates even experienced players.

If you can endure the challenge and take the time to skill up, what awaits you is a stunning alien world, sharp combat mechanics and an immersive and rewarding plot. Either that, or Stockholm syndrome will kick in and you’ll convince yourself you’re having a brilliant time.

Best: Co-op multiplayer game

It Takes Two is a brilliantly inventive co-operative platformer designed to be played by two players on the same sofa. You control a couple who, while in the midst of their divorce, are transformed into a pair of tiny dolls who must set out on an adventure to return to their human form. This tongue-in-cheek adventure traverses problems and puzzles as varied as battling squirrels and collaborating on an enormous dot-to-dot picture.

Crucially, It Takes Two is just as much fun for inexperienced players, and crams so many wonderful ideas into its 10-hour playtime that it can easily be played in short bursts.