At the moment, the PlayStation 4 is one of the highest selling consoles in the world and one of the biggest reasons for that is undeniably its fantastic offering of games.
Whether you're a fan of gorgeous open-world titles like Horizon: Zero Dawn or more inclined towards linear action games like Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, you'll find the best of the best on PS4 .
Choice can be a difficult thing to deal with, though. Not only is it hard to know where you're supposed to start, it's hard to keep on top of every new release. And even then it's hard to know whether the games are worth picking up at all. That's where our guide to the best games on the PS4 comes in handy.
When it was first released the PS4 relied disappointingly heavily on remasters of old PS3 titles such as The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto V. Now it's a very different story: the console has more than come into its own with a library that contains a great mix of big-budget triple-A titles as well as fun and exciting indie games.
Moreover, while the console's early years may have been cursed by a lack of backwards compatibility with the PS3's library (a problem now mitigated, if not entirely solved, by the arrival of PlayStation Now ), these days there are enough games made for PS4 for this to be much less of an issue.
In constructing this list we've tried to cover a variety of game styles and genres from big to small, single-player to multiplayer. So whether you've owner a PS4 since launch, or whether you're a newcomer to the system, you should find something new to love in our 20-item-strong, best-of-the-best list.
This is the PS4's next rising star
Horizon: Zero Dawn is a PlayStation 4 exclusive that owners of the console absolutely should not miss.
Set in an aesthetically prehistoric post-apocalyptic world inhabited by robot dinosaurs, the game puts players in the shoes of Aloy who hunts these creatures and scraps them for parts. It's an interesting premise to say the least but it works.
Our own review classes it as a Play It Now title and although it has a few shortcomings we think it's an huge open world game that gets it right. It's a "must-own game of 2017" with visuals that will be particularly impressive for PS4 Pro owners.
A flawed masterpiece
The Last Guardian has been in the works for ten years and now that we've finally played it we think it deserves to be on this list, in spite of its flaws.
The game has moments of brilliance that will appeal to fans of puzzle solving and platforming. However, it's often pulled back from true greatness by some technical bugs that range from an annoying camera to frustrating companion AI.
Still, players with patience and a willingness to see past some of these more annoying technical aspects will be rewarded with an unforgettably stunning and emotional gaming experience.
Read our full review of The Last Guardian here.
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A chilling return to form
Your gaming collection isn't really complete if it doesn't have a quality horror title and if we had to suggest one it'd be the newest installment in the Resident Evil franchise.
Resident Evil is the franchise that put survival-horror games on the map and though it lost its way slightly in later titles, the newest game is a return to form for Capcom.
By going back to the survival-horror basics and getting them dead on, Capcom has made Resident Evil 7 a genuinely frightening and exhilarating gaming experience. If you have the stomach for the gore, it's absolutely worth playing.
The PlayStation 4 version of the game has an added bonus for PS VR owners – a virtual reality adaption of the game which Capcom has absolutely nailed. However, you'll need to be brave to play it all the way through.
Don't miss our full review of the game.
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They had the technology to rebuild him, better than before
The original Titanfall was a great game, but unfortunately it didn't come to the PlayStation. Fortunately, its sequel, Titanfall 2 , improves on it every conceivable way: the motion is more fluid, there are more distinct titans to choose from and, hold onto your hats here, there's actually a single-player campaign that might take the cake for the best first-person shooter story of the year.
This game's pedigree is inherited from one of this generation's smartest and most unusual shooters. The original Titanfall married ninja-fast on-foot combat to the gloriously thuggish thrill of piloting giant mechs, which are summoned from orbit a few minutes into each match.
The skill with which Respawn has balanced this mix of styles in the sequel is remarkable - Titans have firepower in excess but they're easy to hit, and maps offer plenty of places for infantry to hide. These ideas coalesce into one of this year's most remarkable entries in the genre and is well-deserving its own shot in the spotlight as well as a Game of the Year nomination.
The end of the long and dusty road
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End hasn't been out for very long, but we can already tell that this is going to be a Game of the Year contender come December. The game was tasked with an impossible task by bringing a satisfying close to Naughty Dog's classic adventure series and delivered something well above our expectations. Exceptionally high production values, an engaging story about a wayward brother and an adventure to remember, Uncharted 4 has them all in spades.
Though Naughty Dog's Uncharted journey has finally reached its destination, you're guaranteed to treasure the memories it created forever.
If you're a PS4 owner, it would be criminal not to take this ride.
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Naughty Dog's best, made better
Many games have offered us post-apocalyptic visions of the future, but none have been as brutal, as believable, or as touching as Joel and Ellie's story.
It was near-perfect on PS3, but with current-gen's increased performance ceiling Naughty Dog found ways to ramp up the visual fidelity to 'drop the controller and stare' levels. A radical tonal departure from Uncharted's jovial treasure-hunting escapades, The Last Of Us Remastered demonstrates the California studio's ability to strike a darker mood, populating the overgrown ruins of its setting with a cast characterised by murky morals but still getting you to care for them like your own bessies.
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Lara's origin story finally makes its way to the PS4
Has it really been 20 years since we first saw Lara in action? How the time flies when you're upgrading from a 32-bit resolution to upwards of 4K. But no matter how many years go by, Lara still manages to find a handhold in our hearts.
Despite being the sequel to a prequel about the young life of the Lara Croft, Rise of the Tomb Raider feels like the pinnacle of the series. The reboot which saw a brave new direction for the franchise seemed a lot of the time to be little more than a bit of light Uncharted cosplay, but Rise is a far more accomplished game.
There's now a genuine open world which feels like there is always something to do, and something more than just harvesting up collectibles in exchange for a light dusting of XP. There are also tombs. Yes, that might seem a fatuous thing to say given the name, but the previous game gave them short shrift. In Rise though they are deeper and more plentiful. Plus, on top of everything else, it's got VR support, which is pretty neat considering that there aren't many PlayStation VR titles around these days.
Welcome back to PlayStation, Lara, we've missed you.
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The homecoming we've waited seven years for
Update: It's worth noting that Fallout 4 has now received the update that will allow you to install and play with mods. As if the game wasn't exciting enough you can now change it up to make sure you never get bored. Visit Bethesda's site to check out exactly what you can download for your game.
All things considered, this is one of the best games Bethesda has made. It ticks all the boxes: a massive, detail-oriented open-world; still-fantastic tenets of looting and shooting; a story filled with intriguing side quests and subplots that feel like they matter; and of course a classic soundtrack that brings it all to life.
In many ways it's the game we've been waiting for since Fallout 3 steered the series away from its top-down role-playing roots. Not only is the world itself wider, but the plot is better, and more digestible, than any of the games before it. There's still a sense of mystery about what's happening but you no longer have to dig forever and a day through terminals to piece it together.
Welcome home, stranger.
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Hope you don't have a swear jar
From Software's enigmatic and notoriously challenging Souls titles all hold critical and fan acclaim, but none are as stylistically interesting as the quasi-Industrial era Bloodborne.
It plays like an RPG set indelibly on a hidden difficulty mode with all the helpful text pop-ups removed, which is to say it requires more than a modicum of patience from the player.
But that's the point – in Bloodborne, you get out what you put into it. Victory's all the more rewarding when you've watched your enemy, memorised his attack patterns, struck at the opportune moment and prevailed via the game's impeccable melee combat.
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Stories don't come bigger than this
Geralt didn't have the smoothest of entries to PS4, but after some heavy patching and a lot of angry words about visual downgrades, we're left with an RPG boasting tremendous scope and storytelling.
Oh, and combat. And don't forget Gwent, the in-game card game. And there's the crafting to get stuck into. And the alchemy.
You're rarely short of things to entertain yourself with in The Witcher 3's quasi-open world, then, and all the better that you're in a universe that involves the supernatural without leaning on the same old Tolkien fantasy tropes. Invigorating stuff.
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Our 2016 Game of the Year
Overwatch has without a doubt been one of our favorite games to come out of the last year.
It's a classic team arena shooter from Blizzard that sets two six-person teams of wildly different characters against each other in a bright and cartoonish science fiction universe.
Great graphics, tight maps, and a good roster of characters to enjoy playing. Overwatch is good old fashioned fun and we thoroughly recommend it.
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Of heists and men...
Not only is it the best sandbox game on the platform, GTA V is also the best golf game, the best tennis sim, the undisputed virtual yoga champ, one of the best racers… it's even a pretty serviceable MMO.
We're used to scale and scope from Grand Theft Auto, but what Trevor, Franklin, and Michael bring us is a staggeringly well-realised city seen from three entirely different perspectives. Trevor, the maniacal rampage killer whom we discover to be in all of us when we play a Rockstar game; Franklin, the classic rags-to-riches character with street smarts and the ability to pull off a bandana; and Michael, the troubled criminal with a dysfunctional family and a beer gut to show for his life of violence.
However you play GTA V – a multiplayer muckabout, a story-driven third-person actioner, a flight sim – it reveals itself to be the best game on both this generation and the last.
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Out of this world online multiplayer
Calling Destiny ambitious is a disservice to the game. It's an ambient world (er, galaxy) that operates in real time. It combines single- and multiplayer into a single campaign, seamlessly transitioning between the two. It's from the team that made Halo, so while Destiny may not have the iconic face of Master Chief plastered on the box, it will have the same creative minds doing what they do best: sci-fi.
So what do you do? Imagine a first-person shooter-inspired World of Warcraft. You'll create a character and build him/her from a rookie enforcer to earth's savior by unlocking abilities and improving your expertise with one of the four main types of weapons. Before long you'll be haunting the same locales for a rare weapon drop and partying up with friends to take down some of the toughest space brutes this side of a Sith Temple.
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A refreshing jump back in time
In the latest Battlfield game, DICE takes players back in time to World War One and by doing so completely rejuvinates the once stagnating franchise.
Battlefield 1 's historical setting helps it to stand apart from the rest of the modern military shooters on the market with all new weapons, vehicles, and level designs that feel fresh and capture the chaos and brutality of war.
The game offers a poignant and entertaining single-player campaign that sets a new standard for first-person shooter. Broken into six sections, each following a different character and front line location, the campaign never feels dull or repetitive.
The single player campaign even feeds neatly into Battlefield 1's multiplayer mode which, while familiar, also benefits from the much-needed breath of life that the change in setting gives.
Graphically impressive, entertaining, and sometimes touching, Battlefield 1 is a return to form for the series.
A smart, stealthy, steampunk adventure
Following the surprise 2012 hit Dishonored wasn't going to be an easy task, but Dishonored 2 has more than lived up to its expectations.
Picking up 15 years after the events of the original, Dishonored 2 takes players back to the Victorian Steampunk city of Dunwall. This time, though, you have the choice of whether or not you want to play as the original title's protagonist Corvo, or his equally-skilled protegee Emily.
Dishonored 2 doesn't differ wildly from the first game, but there was nothing wrong with Dishonored in the first place. What we get is a vastly improved and close to perfected take on it.
Anyone who likes their games filled with atmosphere, character, and a bit of wit and intelligence will find Dishonored 2 worth picking up.
You can read our full review here .
Multiplayer doesn't get any better than this
We do a lot of whining about Call of Duty. We roll our eyes and joke how there's a new one every year and how there's, like, no difference. We say all these things and yet every year we know how we're going to spend the month of November: fragging friends and family in the latest Call of Duty game.
Black Ops 3 deserves a spot in your gaming armory for two reasons: it has awesome multiplayer - and there's almost no better way to blow off steam than going 10 kills in a row and calling in an airstrike on a team of people you've never met before but suddenly want to beat in the worst way imaginable - plus, it has one of the greatest game modes ever conceived, zombies.
If shooting zombies straight in the face doesn't you feel like it's money well spent then nothing will.
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The best, most terrifying Souls game yet
PS4 owners have already been blessed by FromSoftware's perverse sense of creativity this console generation with BloodBorne. Well, lucky you, they're back it again with Dark Souls 3.
If you've played previous Souls games, you'll be right at home here. But don't get comfortable. This game might be more accessible to new players, but it isn't easier. The gameplay is faster, the enemies are tougher, and the victories are more satisfying.
Play this if you're looking for a challenging game that will keep giving you reasons to come back.
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Hate basketball? Here's the game that'll change everything
It's not that an advanced understanding of the sport is irrelevant in NBA 2K – you'll appreciate its depth and ultimately get a lot more out of it if you're an aficionado of the real sport – but rather that it's so good, the uninitiated will want to learn both the game and the sport.
Other sports sims attempt to create the illusion of a wider universe beyond game day, but Visual Concepts' game goes way above and beyond. Its MyCareer mode plays out like a star-studded series of One Tree Hill, tracking your user-created baller's progress from rookie to All-Star and league MVP via a ridiculous number of celebrity cameos, dressing room dramas and tough moral decisions.
It's Mass Effect in Air Jordans, essentially.
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There's always time for a little game...
Life is Strange is emblematic of episodic gaming, beautifully crafted. Sure, Telltale's games have been great examples too, but the writing and themes of Dontnod Entertainment's tale of teenage angst and temporal superpowers is something else.
With a story where your actions have real, and far-reaching, consequences it can be rather tense when it comes to making your choice. And trying to figure out all the possible consequences given the time-shifting fun makes them all the more tricky.
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How many Snakes does it take to change a lightbulb?
Okay, so Hideo Kojima's last game for Konami - and his last ever Metal Gear game - might be a little tough for the MGS n00b to get to grips with, but it's still one of the best stealth-action games ever crafted. The open-world shenanigans will satisfy all your behind-enemy-lines / Rambo fantasies and probably confuse you with crazy plot twists and a million characters all with the same gravel-toned voices.
But hey, that's all part of its charm, right?
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