With that, the nominees for the best PS5 games of 2025 are:

Lost Soul Aside

What originally began as a one-man tech demo eventually blossomed into a competent action RPG with Revengeance-like combat and tons of style to spare. You’re not alone in thinking it looks a bit like Final Fantasy given the crystal theming and character design. Still, Lost Soul Aside carves its own identity with its combo-laden combat and varied boss mechanics. The game may have some growing pains as a debut indie effort (especially in its story), but the kernels of greatness are there in its gameplay systems.

The Midnight Walk

If you’re looking for a short-but-sweet adventure game with some uncanny claymation visuals, it’s impossible not to recommend The Midnight Walk. What struck me most as I reviewed the game was the strong atmosphere created by inventive environments, Burton-esque character designs, and a stirring musical score. It’s a game with a remarkably strong sense of place , and the experience lingers long after you’ve completed it.  And for horror fans, there’s plenty to enjoy too, the stealth sections are legitimately nightmarish despite the game’s demure appearance.

Dying Light: The Beast

You don’t need to have played any other Dying Light to have fun with this one. This standalone entry flips the bright, colorful world design of Dying Light 2 on its head with an all-new wooded region infested with infected zombies. In short, it nails the horror vibe fans have been begging for since the first game. Kyle Crane returns with new beast powers that feel great to use on the horrific denizens of Caster Woods, and the skill tree is the best the franchise has seen to date.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Hollow Knight: Silksong finally came out this year and its been well worth the long wait. It earns the perfect 10 we gave it due to its exhilarating boss fights and fun platforming. The level design and progression system add tons of replayability and substance to the game as well, providing well over 30 hours of tough-as-nails content for fans to enjoy. Even newcomers will find plenty to appreciate through the lush soundtrack and charming hand-drawn art

Where Winds Meet

Free to play games have come a long way in offering top-tier experiences without requiring players to spend a dime, and Where Winds Meet might be the most impressive leap yet. The sheer abundance of genres it fuses together is remarkable. You’re getting a vast, gorgeous open world with a meaty single-player campaign, tons of boss battles, minigames, and immersive sim mechanics. If you’ve ever wanted to explore 10^th Century China with some side quests reminiscent of The Witcher 3, and you don’t mind a mostly non-invasive F2P structure plus a few glitches, Where Winds Meet delivers in spades..

Blue Prince

Blue Prince is easily in the discussion for best puzzle game of the year. Heck, it’s arguably one of the best rougelikes of the year as well, especially since it got me, a rougelike denier, to enjoy it. What I love is how simple it is to jump in and immediately understand. You explore a mansion with randomly generated rooms, with the twist being that you’re the one choosing which rooms get “drawn.” The goal is to unlock and enter the mysterious 46th room by selecting the right rooms and solving puzzles along the way. Don’t sleep on Blue Prince. Even if you’re not a fan of puzzle games or roguelikes, its deceptive simplicity has a way of hooking you.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

The original Death Stranding was an amazing game, but it had noticeable issues. Then came the Director’s Cut and it added some new content which made an already great game even better. But Kojima has learned his lessons and after working on the sequel for more than five years, we finally got Death Stranding 2:On the Beach back in June. And, by all accounts this is a stellar achievement. Featuring exceptional gameplay that takes the strand mechanics to newer heights, a story that will capure your attention and visuals that will stun you, this sequel has all the makings of a game of the year.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur is a turn-based RPG that lets players time parries and manually aim for enemy weak spots. This real-time element really adds a lot of dynamism to the classic turn-based formula, complemented by a variety of enemy types to strategize against. Besides the remarkable combat,  genre-specific staples such as story and progression are also exceptional. The cast of characters grapple with mortality and grief throughout the adventure in earnest and thought-provoking ways. You just can’t help but want to solve the ever-dwindling lifespan dilemma The Paintress has concocted. Turn-based RPG fans are eating well this year thanks to Clair Obscur’s stellar story and gameplay.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 expands the grounded medieval immersive sim elements of the first game into a masterful AAA-like experience. You can still get knocked out by common bandits late into the game, but combat is tuned to  be more fun and intuitive. The world design is breathtaking, with the realism of towns like Troskowitz and the bustling Kuttenberg leaving my jaw on the floor. But it’s the story and side quests where the game truly shines. With enhanced cinematography, stellar voice acting, and historically accurate details, KCD2 is as much a narrative powerhouse as it is a medieval simulation.

Silent Hill f

Capturing the essence of the best Silent Hill games isn’t easy. There’s a lot of subtle detail involved. And despite its change in location, Silent Hill f has that essence down. In fact, the rural Japanese town nails that Silent Hill feel perfectly. The environments are grade A spooky, with that characteristic fog enveloping looming threats in ways that feel natural for the rural countryside. Combat is spicier than usual, encouraging you to engage enemies rather than simply retreating. If the monster designs don’t scare you, the camera work and music probably will. There’s just a lot to love with the new Silent Hill and thankfully, there’s five endings to elongate the playtime as much as you want.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

MGS Delta is arguably the ideal remake. The 1:1 cutscenes, 4K visuals, and quality of life features make this the best way to play Metal Gear Solid 3 today. But what impresses me even more than the way the rising sun glints off of Snake’s visor in that opening scene is the new stuff sprinkled in. Snake’s wear and tear over the course of the game is shown through dynamic cosmetic scraps and clothing rips. There’s also the ability to crouch walk (finally) and an over the shoulder perspective, adding some much-wanted gameplay features to the classic. This remake has it all.

Ghost of Yotei

If you’ve played Ghost of Tsushima, you know what to expect with Ghost of Yotei. Yet the game still manages to surprise and impress. The instant load times and silky smooth framerates are particularly impressive. Being built solely with the PS5 in mind allows the game to run flawlessly and then some. The open world here is one of the most beautiful we’ve seen in a game, thanks in part to sweeping draw distances not detracting from foreground detail. Storywise, the Yotei Six serve as a fun, motivating target throughout the story due to how well the narrative frames their actions. Ghost of Yotei is the premier PS5 showcase game at the moment and it doesn’t look like it’s being supplanted any time soon.

Days Gone Remastered

Sure, Sony Bend hasn’t added much new story content to Days Gone in this remaster, but the current-gen tech has given the game a much-needed boost. It finally feels like it’s living up to its potential, story aside. Fighting through hundreds of Freaker zombies is super smooth in this remaster, with the game very rarely dipping below 60 FPS in such chaotic moments. The result is a dynamic open world zombie game with fun combat similar to The Last of Us. If you can tolerate Deacon talking to himself every five minutes, Days Gone Remastered will put you in zombie madness for many hours to come.

Cronos: The New Dawn

Bloober Team has been knocking it out of the survival horror park lately. Between Silent Hill 2 Remake and Cronos, they’re capturing what makes the genre so compelling. Cronos has an atmosphere so tense that it actively rattles you into missing your shots. The claustrophobic journey is made more limiting by The Traveler’s (that’s you) slow traversal speed. Every bullet is prized in this game, and you’ll be seeing the game over-screen quite a bit. But it’s all worth it to experience the unconventional Polish setting and tight gameplay.

Sword of the Sea

Sword of the Sea is an instantly inviting experience. The colorful art style, mesmerizing soundtrack, and seamlessly smooth control scheme are as intuitive and irresistible as it gets in gaming. It’s a journey as magnetic as, well, their previous game The Pathless. Despite minor performance issues, even on PS5, Sword of the Sea flawlessly delivers on what the studio does best, and that’s something to celebrate.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (PS5)

Stalker 2 is finally out on PS5 and what a port it is. PlayStation users get to experience the exclusion zone and all its bizarre anomalies and creatures with smooth performance and impressive visual fidelity. The DualSense haptics shine here, enhancing the act of probing for anomalies with immersive rumble and trigger resistance. Stalker 2’s strong horror atmosphere blends with compelling immersive sim gameplay to create an unforgettable experience, made even more personal via PS5-exclusive features.

And The Best PS5 Game of 2025 Goes to:

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

I don’t know how he did it, but Kojima actually managed to make a game even more zany and compelling than the first Death Stranding. The sequel has so many iconic moments it’s hard to know where to begin. Characters have more fleshed-out backstories and quirks in general, which makes sense given the Hollywood talent Kojima brought along for the sequel. But the game does far more than expand its story and presentation: the delivery sim aspects also see tremendous improvement. Those jaw-dropping moments stumbling atop a cliffside overlooking a gorgeous vista are alive and well, and even more striking thanks to the new day/night cycle. Weather plays a massive role too. Earthquakes, dust devils, downpours, sandstorms, you name it, appear while trekking across the brand-new Mexico and Australia environments. There’s no denying it: Death Stranding 2 is a premier PS5 experience that embodies everything PlayStation strives for in its first-party titles. It’s our best PS5 game of 2025 and one of the greatest first-party games PlayStation has even had.

From Urban Rooftops to Rural Woods

A good number of things differentiate The Beast from its predecessor, but chief among them are the environments and locale. Dying Light 2’s bright, sprawling concrete jungle is a thing of the past. The Beast takes a much darker fork in the road, placing players in the spooky Castor Woods, a rural environment far away from the colorful cityscape of Villedor.

Smaller, Denser Open World

Since The Beast was initially poised to be an expansion, its size was always going to be dwarfed by Dying Light 2. That is still the case despite its status as a stand-alone game; however, this more compact density is for its own benefit. The smaller map not only allows greater focus and time spent on bespoke asset creation and environmental details, but more distinct biomes that both feel and play differently.

More Varied Environments

One of my favorite aspects of dense, compact game worlds is the kind of variety they often exhibit. The Beast is taking a handcrafted approach to its environments. One sharp contrast we see right away is the amount of unique biomes within Castor Woods. There’s a proper township populated with vine-covered brick buildings, some swamplands, something that looks like a train graveyard, and of course the dark heart of the zombie-infested woods itself. This contrasts sharply with the vast and largely homogenized urban districts within Dying Light 2.

Handcrafted Spaces With Many Explorable Interiors

Complementing this environmental variety are the detailed interiors within Castor Woods. Yes, there’s still quite a bit of architecture to explore, despite the more rural setting. Dying Light 2 drew praise for the number of buildings that could be explored. Though feeling copy/pasted at times, the sensation that almost every building was enterable just added to the immersion. The Beast takes this to the next level with way more bespoke interiors and handcrafted spaces. The game’s director has been on record saying that around 98% of structures can be entered. Some of the structures mentioned ranged from churches to factories, we can assume both abandoned by anyone sane. The more compact world map allowed the devs to handcraft each interior to make them distinct from one another.

Parkour Stays Grounded and Slick

Because of the vast difference in location, parkour takes a rather substantial shift. In particular, no skyscrapers and less crowded infrastructure. Several areas still allow you to leap from building to building, such as the township, but there’s far more of nature to climb around this time. Parkour is creative, using tree trunks and other intentionally positioned objects, almost akin to the Pennsylvanian forests. Previews of The Beast haven’t shown any of the extreme paraglider or grapple traversal from Dying Light 2’s base game, implicating a more grounded and slick parkour style rooted in nature.

Survival-Horror Focus

Of course, dark woods and rural factories do something else beneficial for the game: survival horror. The Beast is consciously bringing back the gritty atmosphere of the first game and it’s accomplishing this in a number of ways. First, there’s the darker lighting that the forest ambiance allows. You’ll notice environments aren’t overly bright and colorful like they were in Dying Light 2.

Ammunition Is Scarcer

But The Beast does more than just visual horror. You’ll also encounter a scarcity in resources thanks to the locale being more rural and disconnected from infrastructure. Limited weapon durability also contributes to scarcity, though in The Beast (like Dying Light 2), players can repair and craft weapons. Let’s just hope the designers balanced weapons so it isn’t too irritating or, on the other extreme, overly frictionless.

Nights Are Deadlier and Scarier

The devs have repeatedly emphasized how much more deadly and frightening nighttime is compared to Dying Light 2. Sure, there’s the limited visibility thanks to overgrown trees and absence of artificial light, but the dreaded Volatiles stalk the night to boot, giving chase at the slightest sound or sight of movement. Between the isolated forest setting and the enhanced aggression of the zombies, The Beast is positioned to be the most horror-driven Dying Light game to date.

Different Protagonist

Dying Light 1 fans will either be pleased or annoyed that Kyle Crane returns as The Beast’s protagonist. Yes, that’s right, Aiden Caldwell from Dying Light 2 isn’t the lead anymore. Kyle Crane is back, seeking to take revenge on The Baron who experimented on him. You see, Kyle isn’t the same from his Dying Light 1 days; he’s now part beast, hence the game title.

Beast Mode

Kyle’s newfound abilities manifest through the aptly termed Beast Mode. Beast Mode is exactly what it sounds like, an Incredible Hulk-esque burst of power letting Kyle rampage through foes with his fists and sheer stature. Beast Mode enables unique kill animations and mounting of larger enemy types as well as a ground pound maneuver for crowd control.

More Gory and Visceral

One of the details that playtesters seem rather unanimous about is the sheer amount of gore and carnage compared to previous games. And you see some of that in the gameplay. Kyle ruthlessly decapitates Volatiles when activating Beast Mode. Zombies now rip and tear and have their own flesh torn apart or blown apart by Kyle’s weapons. In particular, there’s a lot of limb dismemberment compared to Dying Light 2 here.

Leaner Skill Progression

You power up these brutal executions through the new Beast Power skill tree. There are only around five or so visible nodes through this new segment of the tree, but if they’re anything like the decapitation animation, we’re all for it. Beast Powers can be purchased with Beast Points, a detail we know little about at this time. Besides just the Beast Powers, there are also a small number of other nodes in the leaner, and hopefully more significant, skill tree.

Drivable 4×4 Trucks

As a fan of Days Gone, the inclusion of drivable 4×4 trucks really piques my interest. Just from a cursory glance at the driving gameplay, everything looks solid. The first-person dashboard details (third-person cam is also available) look authentic, and the car exhaust has that deep V8 sound that’s oh so satisfying to the ear. From a gameplay standpoint, you can look forward to ramming over zombies while speeding up your rural A-to-B travel time. You can presumably go anywhere on the map with the 4×4, though driving around in a gas-guzzling V8 is incredibly dangerous since enemies will notice and harm you—if you don’t run out of fuel first, that is.

More Linear Story

Another difference from Dying Light 2 is The Beast’s more linear story. Sure, on the gameplay front, the game is wide open, but those branching story decisions from Dying Light 2 won’t be featured here. Expect an unchangeable narrative set more or less in stone.

Focused Runtime

The developers have gone on record saying The Beast’s core story content hovers around the 20-hour mark. Of course, being the open-world title that it is, there are still lots of side activities to explore, perhaps double the amount that the main story consists of. We’re potentially looking at around 50 hours of game here, and with four-player co-op that replayability only increases. Dying Light: The Beast releases as a stand-alone game on September 19 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5, and for PS4 and Xbox One at a later date. Its $59.99 price point matches its more pared-down runtime.