The PS5 has been out for quite some time now, proving itself to be quite the graphics powerhouse in the process. When Mark Cerny, the console's lead system architect, initially detailed its capabilities during a GDC presentation in 2020, many found it hard to visualize just how capable the hardware would prove once they brought it home.
While there are still countless gamers yet to get their hands on the console due to supply constraints, those lucky enough to own one can attest to its ability to deliver truly next-gen experiences - but the hardware itself can only go so far without the games required to push it to its limits. As more and more titles that fit that criteria get released, here are some of the most graphically-demanding games currently available on the PS5.
Updated on April 19, 2023, by Sam Hallahan: The PS5 continues to push the boundaries of what's possible with games, visually and technologically. While we eagerly await new and exciting experience in the coming years, we've added even more information to this list, so you can stare for hours at the prettiest games available.
15 Elden Ring
Developer |
FromSoftware |
---|---|
Genre |
Action RPG |
Release Date |
February 25, 2022 |
After years of anticipation, Elden Ring was released to critical acclaim. With countless awards, including Game of the Year 2022, this spiritual follow-up to the Soulsborne games from FromSoftware gave fans a whole new world to explore and challenge themselves with.
All of the FromSoft games are beautiful and stylistic in their own ways, but Elden Ring reaches for new levels of impressive design. With various locations to explore, mountains to climb, dungeons to delve into, and the towering Erdtree shining its light on everything you can see, this game remains a visually impressive title that will make use of that PS5.
14 Returnal
Developer |
Housemarque |
---|---|
Genre |
Roguelike |
Release Date |
30 April 2021 |
Returnal is one of the standout titles on the PS5, especially in its early days. This roguelike is pretty challenging, with rewarding combat and an interesting story that doesn't shy away from venturing into the realm of horror.
It helps that the game looks absolutely stunning as well. Sony's backing has certainly helped developer Housemarque craft an amazing roguelike title that shows just how far the studio has come from its humble beginnings on the indie scene, now dominating the current-gen scene.
13 Death Stranding Director's Cut
Developer |
Kojima Productions |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date (PS5) |
24 September 2021 |
Death Stranding is a title that left people in the dark all the way to its launch. While widely perceived as a walking simulator, the game offers up a certainly unique horror experience that does things no other game has.
It polarized players and critics alike, but has garnered a better reputation over time. With the release of Death Stranding Director's Cut, PS5 players can enjoy this beautiful game as it was meant to be - with unique new features that could only come from the mind of Hideo Kojima.
12 Ghost Of Tsushima: Director's Cut
Developer |
Sucker Punch |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date (PS5) |
20 August 2021 |
Ghost of Tsushima is a brilliant game that fans will have a great time with. The engaging combat and open-world exploration make for a great time, and fans of the classic Kurosawa films will love this experience - especially as you can play it in Kurosawa mode, black and white, styled like a classic movie.
The Director's Cut enhances this world's beauty, and players will have a fantastic time with the breathtaking sights. The Director's Cut also takes Jin to Iki Island, where he must face off against a mysterious new threat brought on by the Mongol invaders, with even more impressive visuals to appreciate.
11 Ghostwire: Tokyo
Developer |
Tango Gameworks |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date |
25 March 2022 |
Set in an abandoned and haunted version of Japan, Ghostwire: Tokyo sets you free to roam as you gain new magic powers you can use to fight against the spirits that have overtaken the city. The story is intriguing and will keep you engaged, but the graphics will draw you in even more.
With such a dense city, it really shines through in an eerie nighttime setting. Dim fog, neon signs and lamps, and puddles everywhere to reflect them - there's even an option for ray tracing on the PS5. This all looks great already, but then you get to see all the effects of the magic powers as you battle spirits - truly stunning to play through.
10 Cyberpunk 2077
Developer |
CD Projekt Red |
---|---|
Genre |
Action RPG |
Release Date (PS5) |
15 February 2022 |
Cyberpunk 2077 is a title that is very much a victim of rushed development and over-promising. The legacy of this game has been forever tarnished by its poor launch. However, after many updates, tweaks, and improvements, Night City looks absolutely stunning on the PS5, with its neon glow and dark shadows.
Recent updates have done a great job of making Cyberpunk 2077 playable on modern consoles. It looks amazing on the PS5, and it's a shame that many people failed to enjoy its story because of technical problems. Perhaps with the updates and DLC, it can be sent off in a better light.
9 Stray
Developer |
BlueTwelve Studio |
---|---|
Genre |
Adventure |
Release Date |
19 July 2022 |
An indie game that won people over immediately, Stray puts you in the... paws? of a cat. You fall into an old city of robots and must find your way back to the outside world. Help out the robotic inhabitants and traverse with your little droid friend as you discover the story of this whole city.
The game does a lot to show just how great games can look, especially from smaller studios. The city looks incredible, the lighting is fantastic, and the style and animations of the cat itself are spot-on. If you haven't played it yet, it's worthwhile just to explore a beautiful location. As a cat. You get to play as a cat.
8 Kena: Bridge Of Spirits
Developer |
Ember Lab |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date |
21 September 2021 |
Originally unveiled during a PlayStation showcase in 2020, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is the debut game by animation studio, Ember Labs. The first thing that struck viewers about the game during that showcase was just how gorgeous it looked.
The indie developer certainly put its animation background to good use while crafting the game, having previously worked on the hauntingly beautiful The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask animated short film, Terrible Fate. The game boasts the same level of detail and expressive characters seen in that film, except most of it was now being rendered in real-time using the processing power of the PS5.
7 Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Developer |
Insomniac Games |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date |
12 November 2020 |
The PS5 had a decent lineup of launch games when it hit virtual store shelves in November 2020, but none of those games were as sought out or highly anticipated as Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the follow-up to the stellar Marvel's Spider-Man by Insomniac Games.
It should be no surprise that the game remains one of the best-selling on the console to date. Not only that, but it had also given many who had picked it up on day one their first glimpse of the PS5 in action, with visuals that managed to surpass its predecessor in every way. The first game was also re-released for the PS5, featuring a reworked character model for Peter Parker among other graphical enhancements.
6 Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade
Developer |
Square Enix |
---|---|
Genre |
Action JRPG |
Release Date (PS5) |
10 June 2021 |
When Final Fantasy 7 Remake launched on the PS4 in 2020, it was clear that it was squeezing every last ounce of performance from the aging 2013 hardware. This manifested in the form of frame rate dips and aggressive object and texture pop-ins at resource-intensive areas of the game.
So, many gamers were eager to see those issues get ironed out through a native version for the PS5. This eventually came through a 2021 re-release dubbed Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, a bundle that included the base game as well as an expansion that featured Yuffie from the original 1997 game as the main character. And the re-release certainly didn't disappoint, showing the game off in its best light while giving the PS5 the opportunity to showcase its graphical prowess.
5 The Last Of Us: Part 1 & Part 2
Developer |
Naughty Dog |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Dates |
2 September 2022 (Part 1), 19 May 2021 (Part 2 PS5 Update) |
The Last of Us has earned its place as one of the best story-driven games when it first launched on PS3 in 2011, and it pushed the boundaries of graphical performance for the time. To this day, it still remains beautiful, as does the PS4 remaster, but with The Last of Us: Part 1 on PS5, the game has essentially been remade with current-gen visuals.
Pair this with The Last of Us: Part 2 and the PS5 update it received, and it's clear that these games are some of the best-looking titles you can dive into on PlayStation 5. The story remains gripping to experience, and the impressive visuals only extend that experience even more.
4 God Of War: Ragnarok
Developer |
Santa Monica Studio |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date |
9 November 2022 |
The sequel to the 2018 reboot, God of War: Ragnarok takes us to new environments and exciting realms that we never got to explore in the previous game. Whether it be all new realms and cities, or familiar places now facing the struggles and effects of Fimbulwinter, the visuals never fail to impress.
While the game itself doesn't do too much to surpass the 2018 entry in terms of gameplay, it does continue what made it so great, and that extends to the impressive graphics on display. You'll definitely stop plenty of times to take in the scenery.
3 Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Developer |
Insomniac Games |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date |
11 June 2021 |
Insomniac Games played a huge part in the PS5's launch period, releasing two triple-A exclusives on the console within the span of months. The second of these was Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the sixteenth installment in a series that originally started its life on the PS2.
For its latest game, the studio leveraged not only the graphical capabilities of the PS5, but its super-fast SSD for near-instantaneous loading of assets as well. This allowed them to realize the game's rift mechanic, in which you can zip between areas and dimensions seamlessly. The fact that it also looks like something produced at an animation studio like Pixar only goes to show how far games have come since the first entry in the series was released in 2002.
2 Horizon Forbidden West
Developer |
Guerrilla Games |
---|---|
Genre |
Action Adventure |
Release Date |
18 February 2022 |
Despite being overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at the time of its release, Horizon Zero Dawn was still one of the best-looking games on the PS4 at the time of its release. So with its inevitable sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, Guerrilla Games sought to replicate that feat on the PS5.
The game remains one of the best-looking games on PS5, with a laundry list of visual and gameplay improvements over the already-breathtaking original. All of that is made even more impressive by the fact that it was built on top of a PS4 framework. For a cross-gen title, the game really does manage to go above and beyond with its PS5 version, making you wonder what it could potentially have looked like were it not being held back, so to speak, by the capabilities of the PS4.
1 Demon's Souls
Developer |
Bluepoint Games |
---|---|
Genre |
Action RPG |
Release Date |
12 November 2020 |
Following the incredible work it had done with its remake of Shadow of the Colossus on the PS4, many had speculated what Bluepoint Games' next project might be, with names like Metal Gear Solid getting thrown around. The cat was soon out of the bag though, when it finally took the wraps off that project during a PlayStation showcase.
Of all the games that were available during the launch of the PS5, none were as jaw-dropping as Demon's Souls, the remake of the seminal FromSoftware title from the PS3 era. Not only was it a ground-up reworking of the 2009 title, but it also introduced a number of quality-of-life improvements that made the game more accessible to a modern audience. And it did all that while leveraging modern rendering techniques, creating something that was both decidedly next-gen, and true to the original.