Welcome to Engadget’s best PS5 games list. As always, we have looked for must-play games that generally offer meaningful improvements over their last-gen counterparts when played on PS5, or are exclusive to the system. We'll be updating this periodically, so, if a video game's just been released and you don't see it, chances are that the reason for its absence is that we haven't played through it for the first time yet. Either that or we hate it.
Stray
$37 at WalmartDead Space
$62 at AmazonGran Turismo 7
$41 at AmazonElden Ring
$55 at AmazonGod of War Ragnarök
$69 at Amazon
Stray
Stray
$37 at Walmart
Stray a perfectly contained adventure game that has you embodying a cat in a post-apocalyptic world humans have left behind. It has plenty of fresh ideas, each one pared down to its purest form. Plenty of actions in Stray exist simply because they make sense for a cat protagonist (and probably because they’re cute as hell). There’s a discrete button to meow, and the robots the cat shares its world with react with shock and frustration when you cut across their board game, throwing pieces to the floor. It’s possible to curl up and sleep basically any time, anywhere – even directly on top of a robot stranger. When the cat gets pets and cuddles from the robots, it purrs and the DualSense’s haptics fire up in response. The environmental puzzles take advantage of this cat-level perspective, inviting players to look at the world with different, light-reflective eyes.
As well as puzzle-solving, ledge-leaping and blob-dodging, Stray introduces a world of lighthearted dystopia, where robots don’t hate the humans that came before them. Instead, they attempt to cultivate plants that can survive in the dark, just because people would have liked that. Compared with most dystopian cyberpunk games, Stray is downright joyful and one of the best PlayStation 5 games you can get.
Dead Space
Dead Space
$62 at Amazon
The Dead Space remake feels like a warm, juicy hug from a murderous necromorph, and we mean that in the best way possible. The 2023 version of Dead Space spit-shines the mechanics that made the original game so magically horrific back in 2008, and it doesn’t add any unnecessary, modern bloat. The remake features full voice acting, new puzzles and expanded storylines, and it introduces a zero-gravity ability that allows the protagonist, Isaac Clarke, to fly through sections of the game in an ultra-satisfying way.
None of these additions outshine the game’s core loop: stasis, shoot, stomp. Isaac gains the ability to temporarily freeze enemies and he picks up a variety of weapons, but he never feels overpowered; he’s always in danger. Mutilated corpse monsters appear suddenly in the cramped corridors of the space station, charging at Isaac from the shadows, limbs akimbo and begging to be shot off. The first Dead Space popularized the idea that headshots don’t matter and the remake stays true to this ethos – yet its combat rhythm still feels fresh.