Over its 30-year history, it’s fair to say that a lot of incredible games have graced PlayStation. Across five generations of consoles, two handhelds, and toes dipped into the VR waters, there is a lot to choose from, but we’ve put our heads together to narrow it down to the top 100 of all time. These aren’t necessarily the best games to play right now, but ones that have cemented their legacy in PlayStation lore and paved the way for what was to come.
What games do you see when you close your eyes and hear the word PlayStation? While we’ve got a good amount of exclusives on this list, we, of course, have to include a fair few multiplatform classics as well. Our rule of thumb for those is if you when you think of that game, do you see a PlayStation banner at the top of its box? If so, it qualifies here.
You’ll see plenty of familiar faces here, from Crash to Kratos, but there will no doubt be some that surprise you as well. Have an opinion on what should be placed where? Let us know in the comments below.
(Over the course of this week we’ll be steadily revealing our picks, with 20 being revealed each day until the full ranking is complete on Friday November 29th.) So, without further ado, here are the top 100 PlayStation games of all time:
100. Ape Escape
Hot on the heels of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, Sony once again explored the mascot platformer waters with Ape Escape, a family-friendly, chimp-hunting adventure that armed players with a slew of monkey-capturing gadgets.
Ape Escape was popular enough to spawn many sequels and is still referenced as recently as 2024’s Astro Bot. But perhaps its most important legacy was being the first game that could only be played with the recently released DualShock, introducing a controller layout that still stands strong for PlayStation to this day.
99. Crash Team Racing
Crash Bandicoot was Sony’s solution to compete with Nintendo’s Mario and so, naturally, he needed a kart racer, too. A shameless imitation of Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing is nontheless a genuinely a fun time, with a great selection of tracks and all of the silly weapons and power-ups you’d expect from the genre. Just like his platforming, Crash isn’t as good at driving as his red-capped contemporary, but CTR is still a speedy party in its own right.
98. Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage
Ripto’s Rage is the most complete Spyro package. More challenging compared to its predecessor, it improved on everything that everyone’s favourite little purple dragon brought the table the first time around. A certain bandicoot may have ultimately come out on top as the original PlayStation’s mascot platformer of choice, but Spyro certainly played his part. It’s also notable, and worth celebrating, that both Spyro developer Insomniac and Crash studio Naughty Dog have together evolved into two of Sony’s most important sources of blockbuster creativity from such similar beginnings.
97. Tearaway
LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule reinvented its arts-and-crafts approach for portable gaming with Tearaway, one of the PS Vita’s shining stars. Making innovative use of the console’s rear touchpad and front-facing camera, you are able to enter Tearaway’s papercraft world by pushing your fingers ‘through’ the landscape, or by having your own face adorn the skies as a colossal shining sun. That’s all good fun, but it only works because Tearaway is also a great and charming platformer, too.
96. Deathloop
Arkane Lyon only made one PlayStation timed exclusive before being snapped up by Microsoft in the Bethesda deal, but god was it a good one. Echoing the outside-the-box creativity of Sony’s best output, Deathloop is a time-looping shooter that’s also a detective game and a PvP assassination sim. Ambitious, but never to a fault.
95. Jak 2
Rockstar dominated the PS2 era of open-world games, but that didn’t stop Naughty Dog from trying its hand at it. Jak 2 moves away from the mascot platformer bedrock of its predecessor to take Jak and his Ottsel companion Daxter to a hub-world city filled with danger. An ambitious pivot to a more combat-heavy focus, it was a gamble that paid off, as well as being one of the best-looking games of the generation.
94. LocoRoco
Platformer LocoRoco was one of the PlayStation Portable’s must-own games and one of so many examples of the out-there creativity that Sony’s Japan Studio contributed to PlayStation since the very beginning. A relatively simple concept based around the idea of rolling colourful jellies from point A to B, it contained hidden complexities that accentuated its elegant design. Packed full of charm that threatened to burst out of its portable confines, it was a treat in every sense of the word.
93. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Insomniac followed up its 2016 reboot of Ratchet & Clank with PS5 exclusive Rift Apart, arguably still the greatest display of the hardware’s power to date. Colours pop off the screen at each turn and particles flood the sky at every opportunity, especially when firing one of its many outrageous, esoteric weapons. A great example of how to do action platforming on a multiversal scale, it assembles a new high for the long-running Lombax series.
92. Lumines
Before Tetris Effect, designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi had an idea that combined block-based puzzling with electronic music that could be played on the go. That idea became Lumines, one of the best puzzle games to ever grace the PSP. While solving its Tetris-like puzzles was what made it fun, the kicking soundtrack that synchronised its beat with the gameplay made it so anyone who played Lumines feel like a third member of Daft Punk.
91. Syphon Filter
It’s easy to write off Syphon Filter as a Metal Gear clone, especially as it released just months after Kojima’s masterpiece debuted on PlayStation. But despite the similarities between these two stealth experiences, Syphon Filter is a brilliant espionage adventure in its own right thanks to sharp gunplay, a story stuffed with twists, and missions that are as varied as they are action packed.
90. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
A lavish RPG about a boy whisked away to a fantasy land to revive his recently deceased mother, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the Witch is a PlayStation 3 exclusive built on the wonderful bones of the Nintendo 3DS’ Dominion of the Dark Djinn. With a Pokemon-like monster-collecting battle system and an enrapturing story, Level-5 left a mark on a console lacking in top-tier RPGs for much of its lifetime. Throw in sequences produced by Japanese animation masters Studio Ghibli and you’ve got one of the most visually arresting games on the PS3. And if all that were not enough, it also gave us the Welsh legend that is Mr Drippy. Long live our short king.
89. Pro Evolution Soccer 6
Pro Evolution Soccer 6 is as good as football games have ever been. At a time when the rivalry between PES and FIFA was at an all-time high, Konami’s soccer simulation was the sports game to play on PS2. It’s the sort of standout opposition that EA sorely misses now, as with no strong competition the genre is left to wallow in mediocrity. Oh, for those glory days to return.
88. Patapon 3
Patapon 3 is a rhythm game with a difference, because every note you hit – in this case, a different beat of a drum – issues commands to a band of one-eyed warriors you lead into battle. Different button combos order them to advance, retreat, defend and attack. Patapon’s unique blend of strategy and rhythm action is as infectious as its soundtrack, and the constant hum of ‘Pon-pon-pata-pon’ is an earworm that still sticks over a decade later.
87. Horizon Zero Dawn
Killzone developer Guerrilla Games took a big swing on the PS4, ditching its desaturated shooter series for the altogether much more vibrant world of Horizon Zero Dawn. Its rug-pulling sci-fi story is a solid backdrop for the introduction of a new PlayStation hero in the form of Aloy and her metal dinosaur-decapitating archery combat. It proved a crucially strong pivot for Guerilla, and set in motion the start of a new series that has already seen a PS5 sequel, VR experience, and LEGO game spawn from it.
86. Doom Eternal
PlayStation isn’t the natural home of the FPS, and so unsurprisingly there are very few of them on this list. Also unsurprising is that one of our FPS picks is Doom Eternal, which rethinks and refines Doom’s fundamentals in a way that makes it feel like the shooter of tomorrow instead of the seventh sequel in a decades-old series.
85. SSX Tricky
SSX Tricky proved stiff competition in the extreme sports market for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Barreling down perilous mountains and flipping around in every direction was fun in its own right, but it’s that colourful style that Tricky brought to the otherwise snow-white vistas that made it truly pop off the screen. The PS2 era was one where you couldn’t move for a BMX, surfing, or snowboarding sim, but SSX stood out as one of the best in its field.
84. Tetris Effect
Long-associated with the Game Boy — where Tetris was sold as a bundled game — Tetris Effect sees Rez mastermind Tetsuya Naguchi reimagine the eternal puzzle game for the PlayStation VR headset. Themed around the psychological effect of the same name that occurs when playing the block stacker for long hours, Tetris Effect turns the classic game into a psychotropic-like trip by combining the timeless tetriminos with far-out visuals and stellar soundtrack.
83. Kingdom Hearts 2
Mickey Mouse fused with Final Fantasy shouldn’t work. Yet Square Enix demonstrably proved that it can in Kingdom Hearts. Its the bigger and better sequel though, in which Sora, Goofy, Donald and the lads embark on a convoluted sequel through beloved Disney worlds, where the concept truly flourishes. Particular highlights are a blast from the past in the form of the Steamboat Willie-inspired Timeless River level and Hercules’ Olympus Coliseum. Does it all make much sense? That’s a question for another day. We’ll enjoy any game that lets us chat with Winnie the Pooh in between bashing enemies with a giant key, though.
82. Monster Hunter World
The Monster Hunter franchise is fondly remembered for its PSP legacy, which enabled millions of gamers — mostly in Japan — to spend hours hunting and gathering together in between work and school. But Monster Hunter World would bring the series roaring out of the gates and onto the home consoles of millions of new fans. Monster Hunter World took the series’ tried and true gameplay loop and made everything much, much bigger. Bigger monsters, larger worlds, and even more players to link up with to take down giant creatures, collect their hides, make better armor, and repeat.
81. Medal of Honor: Frontline
The original 1999 Medal of Honor, co-created by Steven Spielberg, is a true PlayStation classic, but it’s 2002’s MoH: Frontline on PS2 where the historical shooter series finally fulfills its playable Saving Private Ryan ambition. Opening on an intense recreation of the D-Day landings, Frontline’s exciting and varied campaign is the blueprint for Call of Duty’s later success.
Come back tomorrow when we’ll be counting down to 61 on the 100 Best PlayStation Games.
