What a banger of a year for the PlayStation 4. It threw heater after heater over the course of 2016. (We can ignore the middling PlayStation VR.) Not all of them are going to be for everybody, though, so we’re going to try to spread the picks out a bit. If you’ve got a PlayStation 4, chances are you’ll find something for someone on this list.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End — $59.99
What else is there to say about this than it is the perfect ending to Nathan Drake. It’s not the conclusion of the Uncharted franchise; no, we got news that The Lost Legacy is more standalone than DLC, so there’s a good chance the brand still has legs. But A Thief’s End is poignant and beautiful and far more considered in its moves than any past game. It still has the set pieces and the killer looks, but it strikes some chords it never even tried before.
Available for $59.99.
Ratchet & Clank — $19.99
The PlayStation 4 has desperately been missing Ratchet & Clank since its launch, and the industry at large has had a Lombax-shaped hole in its heart far beyond that. Once the Future series hit and it transitioned into a PSN lineup, it faded away from the limelight despite continuing to do some of the best work Insomniac has ever done. But with this reimagining of the 2002 classic, we’re all a bit happier—a bit fuller—with life as it explodes in nutso guns and upbeat attitude and odd sense of humor.
Available for $19.99.
Bound — $19.99
Bound is one thing and one thing only: motion. It wants to be all about dancing through your elegant and faceless beautiful nightmare, but it’s really about anything that moves. The world you find yourself in is in constant motion, as if unsettled by the very thought of paralysis—of stillness. Through that, it builds an incredible and vivacious and breathing world of abstract thought and emotion. It may have its problems, but convincing you that this place exists is not one of them.
Available for $19.99.
The Last Guardian — $59.99
Fair enough if you think The Last Guardian struggles to be competent. That is an exceptionally succinct appraisal of this nearly vaporware piece of gaming. But it also manages to succeed at being one of the most affecting stories about a boy and a cat-dog-bird that you’ll ever encounter. Their relationship and the ways in which you interact with both of them build an immense narrative bond that’s hard to discount.
Available for $59.99.
Let It Die — Free
If you want to keep up with the transitory zeitgeist going into 2017, then you’ve got to play Let It Die from Goichi Suda. That slick, weird, flashy skateboarding reaper is all the cool kids are talking about because, well, it’s a skateboarding reaper. Plus, it’s a pretty good game, mixing Suda’s knack for absurd panache and some terrifically mean-spirited hack-and-slash gameplay.
Available for free.
