The Best PS5-Exclusive Games Of 2025
The PS5 is well into its lifespan as we close out 2025, but the console has shown a remarkable momentum thus far that didn't slow down at all this year. We saw the console continue to flourish, both with its deep library of third-party games as well as a number of exclusives. Even as we've begun wondering when the PS6 will eventually release, the PS5 is having no problem keeping players engaged.
The best PS5 games to release in 2025 were remarkably varied, including some long-awaited sequels to smash-hit PS4 games, a brand-new narrative adventure that blew us away, and one of the most intentionally infuriating games ever made. "There's something for everyone" is a tired cliche, but it couldn't be more appropriate for our favorite PS5 games of the year. For this list, we considered PS5 exclusives as well as console exclusives, meaning games that also released on PC were eligible.
For more of our end-of-year content, be sure to check out our picks for the top 10 games of the year, our 2025 Game of the Year--which is available on PS5--and our running list of the best PS5 games to play right now if you've already finished the games below.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
On paper, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach shouldn't work. It's a paradoxical blend of emotions, juxtaposing themes of grief and loss with moments of choreographed dance numbers and confronting Godzilla-sized threats with a Megas XLR-style solution. But what makes Death Stranding 2: On the Beach so special is that it fully commits to the moment, reveling in absurdity and being earnest with its audience during its more dramatic moments. It's a game born out of COVID-19 lockdowns, propelled by a message of hope and wanderlust that compels you to experience life to its fullest.
As a sequel, Death Stranding 2 takes everything that made the original post-apocalyptic courier game so great and sands down every rough edge. This, in turn, creates an elegant system of interconnected gameplay mechanics and an in-game social network that rewards players who actively work to improve the world around them. Removing several major points of friction makes the default experience of exploring a world inhabited by nightmare-fuel tar monsters less of a slog when compared to the first game, and those improvements also highlight the haunting beauty of Death Stranding 2.
Those meditative treks across a new frontier, the silence broken only by a well-curated playlist as you hold your breath and sneak past the ghosts of the past, make for a unique and wonderfully weird experience that's hard to beat. -- Darryn Bonthuys
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review
Ghost of Yotei
The 2020 game Ghost of Tsushima was, among other things, a proof of concept. The studio that brought us the Saturday morning cartoon-esque Sly Cooper and superheroic Infamous games aimed to make something more quiet, somber, and provocative--while also challenging Assassin's Creed on its own turf, in a setting fans had been requesting from Ubisoft for years. It was a success, and its follow-up, Ghost of Yotei, is even more refined.
Whereas Tsushima told a historical epic of a noble samurai forced to turn to dishonorable methods, Yotei carries no such pretensions. This is a revenge tale, plain and simple. The heroine, Atsu, barely even seems to consider herself a human being. She has forged herself into a weapon to hunt the Yotei Six, giving her a clarity of purpose. This darker edge to the character counterintuitively makes the story feel lighter and more focused, without as much soul-searching or self-flaggelation.
Meanwhile, the core strengths of the series are polished to a mirror shine in this second iteration. Combat is a tight and delicate dance, juggling your various weapons against crowds of enemies foolish enough to think they can defeat the ghost. You learn how to wield many weapons under the tutelage of masters who add context and detail to the world. And the game is a visual feast thanks to its gorgeous rendition of the Japanese countryside, from snowy mountainous peaks to sprawling lowlands. This one is not to be missed. -- Steve Watts
Dispatch
Just like many have credited Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with revitalizing a specific type of party-based RPG, Dispatch has been widely credited with breathing new life into the Telltale-style adventure game. Originally released episodically over several weeks, this superhero action-comedy hybrid stands proudly on its own, even in an era of The Boys and Invincible already offering something similar. Mature-themed cape sagas are so in right now, but thanks to stellar voice work from the likes of Laura Bailey and Aaron Paul, a deep reserve of original heroes and villains, and more than a few arresting cliffhangers, Dispatch more than holds up as well worth your time and emotional investment, whether you're one to maintain a pull list at your local comic shop or you're just looking for a great new video game story.
But the interesting wrinkle to Dispatch--which you might not see coming if you're just in it for the Telltale of it all--is the actual dispatching of Dispatch. Since the game casts you as an emergency response dispatcher, sending out your roster of heroes to address crimes actively unfolding across the city, the game adds a role-playing element to the story-driven game, in which you'll need to match your heroes to crime scenes based on their strengths and weaknesses, then effectively roll for success. It's in these moments that you can see how Critical Role's involvement jumps off the screen. The dispatch segments play sort of like a DnD campaign, rewarding you for thoughtful decisions and challenging you with some lesser-of-two-evil outcomes. These tie nicely into the game's story, which consistently plays in the gray area between hero and villain. -- Mark Delaney
Lumines Arise
There are a lot of fantastic puzzle games available on PlayStation 5, but few are as utterly spectacular as Lumines Arise. To be clear, I don't mean "spectacular" as merely a synonym for "great" here: Lumines Arise is a spectacle in the truest sense of the word, one brimming with atmosphere and artistry. Though Lumines Arise's conceit is simple enough to grasp--form matching squares to clear your board, and try not to let the falling blocks pile up too high--it's the game's visuals and music that transform it into something truly special.
The first new entry in the Lumines series in over a decade, Lumines Arise takes the Lumines formula and gives it the Tetris Effect treatment, adding emotionally charged music, high-fidelity visuals, and some semblance of a story to the puzzler. Not only do all these additions make the game a blast to play, they create a sense of variety that keeps things fresh and compelling. The frequent influx of new music, visual gimmicks, and stimulating sounds keep players on their toes and engrossed in the experience, while its "easy to learn, hard to master" gameplay makes going to the next level more of an impulse than a choice. -- Jessica Cogswell
Baby Steps
Baby Steps is infuriating.
A third-person walking simulator in the most literal sense of the word, Baby Steps is an open-world exploration game from Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy, and it is meant to mess with you. You control a 35-year-old onesie-wearing doofus named Nate, and for some reason, Nate can't do anything on his own--including walking. Each of the triggers on your controller picks up one of Nate's feet, while the left analog stick controls how he leans. So you press a trigger to pick up a foot, lean forward with the stick, and put it down. One step. Then you pick up the other foot with the other trigger, lean forward with the stick, and put it down. Another step. Mess up any of these operations and you'll overbalance Nate, who will flop over and slam into the ground like a fish tossed onto the deck of a boat.
Then you do that again and again. To climb a mountain.
Yes, this can be irritating. It is also very funny, in more ways than one. Watching Nate tumble off a cliff or barrel down a muddy river is excellently ridiculous. What makes Baby Steps brilliant is that it is consistently making fun of you. But not just you--itself, too. And not just you and itself, but the very concept of video games, as it asks what, exactly, is it about our stupid brains that makes us insist on doing this to ourselves?
Baby Steps is a game that goofs on you for picking up a controller in the first place, but it does so from a place of love. With its excellent performances and ludicrous world and characters, it is, also, a joy to explore--while also being designed so well that it is fun to play at the same time as being excruciating. It's a game that reminds you not to take the demand to "get gud" quite so seriously, while being ruthless--and hilarious. -- Phil Hornshaw
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