In any walk of life, it’s always good to start on the right foot and hit the ground running, and that is equally true if you’re a games console manufacturer at the beginning of a new console generation. With every new era, there is a clean slate, a chance to find new fans and win over members of the opposition. There are lots of ways to do this in the long term, but on day one, the best way to get off to a good start is by delivering an amazing launch line-up.
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It’s fair to say that launch titles have been a bit of a mixed bag forPlayStationfans, and that’s usually down to the fact that developers are still getting to grips with the new hardware. However, alongside some duds, there have also been some all-time classics. So, we want to shine a spotlight on those amazing titles by listing the best PlayStation launch titles ever.
10Ridge Racer
We begin our star-studded launch line-up with a racing classic. It’s Ridge Racer, remember that one?
Sony’s cringy 2006 E3 conference aside, Ridge Racer is a series that has a fine legacy within the racing game genre and provided PSX players with their first taste of high-octane motorsports on the classic console.
Unlike the hyper-realistic racers of today, likeGran Turismo 7andForza Horizon, Ridge Racer was a game that managed to bring an arcade-like feel to the racing genre and provide addictive, fast-paced fun with all the thrills and spills that come with that.
For the time, the game offered impressive visuals, tight controls, a pulsating soundtrack, and a decent selection of tracks and vehicles to mess around with. It’s a game that may seem like a relic today, but I assure you, this launch title was a dream come true for racing fans, making this a nailed-on inclusion on this list.
9Timesplitters
TimeSplitters
Many fans will still bereeling over the untimely cancelation of a Timespliters rebootafter Free Radical was shut down in the great Embracer Group re-shuffle. But it’s important to remember the good times, and there were plenty of good times to be had when playing the original Timesplitters.
While it was quite rough around the edges when compared to the games that would come later in the series, even early on, you could see that this series had the legs to go on to bigger and better things. However, that’s not to say that the original was a letdown.
This shooter still offered a dynamic and high-octane campaign with a zany B-movie feel and aesthetic, gameplay that continued the great work of games like Perfect Dark and Goldeneye 64, and, of course, the fun factor shot up immeasurably when you played in multiplayer mode with your friends.
FPS games were definitely not the bread and butter of the PlayStation 2, as PC was usually where these games saw the most success, but Timesplitterswas an exception to this rule for sure.
8Tony Hawks Project 8
As a skater approaching my thirties, I have a deep adoration for the THPSgames, and the THUGgames that came thereafter. However, there was a real drop-off for the Birdman after the PS2 era came to an end, with games like Tony Hawks Proving Grounds, Tony Hawks Downhill Jam, and several others serving as critical and commercial flops.
However, one game managed to make it in at the buzzer and effectively served as a goodbye to the prolific period of THPSdominance in the skating game sub-genre.
Tony Hawk’s Project 8 was a game that had all the key components of a classic Tony Hawk’s outing with some modern inclusions to make the most of the new hardware and set it apart.
The focus time mechanic was very satisfying to play around with.
The map slowly revealed itself to be a wonderful open-world setting akin to American Wasteland, and the story-based gimmick of needing to rise through the ranks to earn a spot in Tony’s Project 8 team was the perfect motivation to complete challenges and explore thoroughly.
It did mark the end of a magical era of skating games, as EA Skate muscled in to steal the crown, but to this game’s credit, what a way to sign off.
You may think that Housemarque’s first breakout bullet-hell success came in the form ofReturnal, but they’ve actually been a major player in the bullet hell genre for quite some time, and the PS4 launch title Resogunis proof of that.
This game is a title that sees you play as a little ship that navigates a circular looping stage, and using your lasers, you’ll need to take out all the enemies on screen. It’s basically a modern and high-intensity re-imagining of games like Asteroids and Space Invaders, and manages to capture a similar addictive arcade feel.
However, thanks to the power of the hardware and the modern game design options available, this game provides a much more nuanced and fast-paced arcade epic than those mentioned. Complete with an insane amount happening on screen from moment to moment, a killer soundtrack accompanied by 4K visuals, and tough bosses to offer grand finales to each stage.
It’s a brilliant modern arcade classic that many may have slept on when it appeared on launch day. If you are one of these people, be sure to pick up this one and see what you’ve been missing all this time.
6Need For Speed Carbon
Need For Speed: Carbon
Need For Speed games have always been wonderful racing games that usually come with a unique gimmick or focus that sets them apart from others in the series. For example, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was all about evading the police while becoming a street-racing legend, whereas Need for Speed Payback was much more like a love letter to modern Fast and Furious movies.
Well, in the same vein, Need for Speed Carbon was a game that focused heavily on drifting, allowing you to live out your Ken Block fantasy in virtual form.
Need for Speed Carbon added lots of new and exciting features to enhance the NFS experience, such as the aforementioned Drift races, destructible environments to reveal helpful shortcuts, and a wealth of cool cars and a laundry list of ways to customize them.
Due to the excellent visuals, this game still holds up today despite being a PS3 launch title, so if you want a new racing title to binge, this is a great option.
Many modern gamers will be most familiar with Raymanthanks to games like Rayman Legends, or perhaps the Raving Rabbids series. However, this famous mascot platformer burst onto the scene all the way back in 1995 as a PSX launch title.
This would be the catalyst for the many award-winning 3D outings like Rayman Revolutionsthat would come thereafter. However, if you ask me which Rayman game is the most unique, I would say that the original title wins by a distance.
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This platformer offered wacky and whimsical visuals that still look phenomenal today, and provided a series of incredible levels, each with its own catchy backing track. The best way to describe this is ifCupheadwas an out-and-out platformer made back in the 1990s, we reckon it wouldn’t look and play too dissimilarly to the originalRaymanouting.
It does have some difficulty spikes that make it hard to revisit today, but even with these minor hangups, I would still recommend checking it out.
4Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
Ever since Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and the conclusion of Ezio Auditore’s story, Assassin’s Creed as a series has had an issue with its recurring narrative. With the issue mainly being that Ubisoft actively does its utmost to bury any mention of Desmond Miles and the initial narrative that helped put the franchise on the map.
This has led to a series of standalone stories in different locales, allowing the series to continue indefinitely, and it’s fair to say that this formulaic and vague approach has had mixed success.
However, one game that managed to offer a standout experience within this framework was the swashbuckling pirate epic Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. This game cast you as one of the coolest Assassins of the bunch, Edward Kenway, and allowed you to take to the high seas in a Caribbean setting that still looks outstanding today.
Plus,AC: Black Flagprovided a vast open world that actually felt rewarding to explore, rather than today’s bloated and ‘big for the sake of it’ AC titles. It’s still probably the best AC game post-Assassin’s Creed 2, and well worth checking out.
3Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
It’s fair to say that the gaming community as a whole really loved the creative and colorful world of LittleBigPlanet,but after the third iteration, it seemed pretty clear that the series had been taken as far as it could possibly go without retreading old ground.
This left Sony with the conundrum of keeping the SackboyIP alive and kicking, but as they often do, they found a way to get them back on our screens in a co-op platformer epic that feels like Sony’s best imitation of a LEGO game, minus the LEGO.
The game still has the same Britishisms and charm of the titles that have come before but shakes up the formula to offer a 3D platformer with a litany of bespoke levels, each with its own unique gimmicks, puzzles, and rewards to gather.
Plus, it has so many cute costumes to dress your little Sackboy up in, that’s practically worth the price of admission alone. The PS5 got off to an excellent start this generation, and Sackboy’s Big Adventure certainly had a hand in this.
2Demon’s Souls
Demon’s Souls
Our runner-up is one of the two PlayStation-exclusive FromSoft titles, and the one that will have been the deciding factor among many Souls fans when it came to choosing which next-gen console to go for.
Demon’s Soulsis a remake of the 2009 classic that kickstarted the Soulsborne genre, and this Bluepoint Studios project manages to keep all the gameplay aspects and core design elements of the original intact, while also managing to drag the visuals up to the modern standard of today, and provide some much-needed quality of life fixes.
Up until 2020, it was a pretty arduous task to playDemon’s Soulsas the 2009 version was locked on PS3, had no online support, and was extremely antiquated when compared to modern Soulsborne titles likeElden Ring, for example.
But this launch title finally allowed Souls fans to go back to where it all began and experienceDemon’s Soulsin all its glory without having to jump through hoops to do so. It may still have the awkward mechanical choices and gimmicky bosses the original had, but despite the wonkiness, we wouldn’t change it for the world.
1Astro’s Playroom
Astro’s Playroom
A launch title needs to fit a certain spec. It needs to sell units, provide a fun experience, ideally feature an IP that is indicative of the brand, and it also needs to make the most of the new hardware. So, working with this logic, I cannot think of a more fitting best launch title of all thanAstro’s Playroom.
It’s a title that ticks all the bosses by offering a game that is a love letter to the PlayStation brand and the fans, a game that provides a truly masterful platforming extravaganza, and it’s a game that gets the most out of the DualSense controller and all the great tech in the palm of your hands.
Not to mention, it’s a game that comes installed as standard with all PS5 consoles, meaning that it’s a completely free experience for all PS5 owners, which is a first when it comes to launch titles.
This title was so outstanding despite being a glorified tech demo that itprompted Sony to greenlight a follow-upAstro Botplatforming adventure that is set to come out next month at the time of writing, and we can’t wait. It’s a launch title that nails everything it sets out to do, and if you haven’t played it, do yourself a favor and binge this one sometime soon.
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