10 Best Adventure Games for PS5 (2024)

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Human Made

Penned by Cody D. Campbell

Cody has been a gamer ever since his family got a Sega Genesis when he was five-years-old. In addition to his love of narrative-focused RPGs and ho... Read more

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

There are a lot of amazing games that have been released on the PS5, but few of them take advantage of the full scope of the console’s capabilities like adventure games. These games place emphasis on puzzles, exploration, and interactivity with massive open-world settings. By building up the importance of environmental design, studios have flexed the power of the PS5’s graphics hardware to produce some truly beautiful worlds full of unique dangers for players to navigate and treasures for them to discover. Today, we’re going over the 10 best adventure games for PS5.

Let’s get started!

10 Best Adventure Games for PS5, Ranked

There are a lot of options out there, but the best adventure games on the PS5 take advantage of both the PS5’s considerable processing power and some of the special features that are unique to the DualSense controller. Here are our top 10 picks!

10/10

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Many have accused the Assassin’s Creed franchise of growing stale over the years, as each new game seemed to only get more complicated without really doing much to innovate the franchise’s core design. Then Assassin’s Creed Origins was released in 2017. Its open word design and travel system took the franchise in a new direction by making them more into action-adventure games with RPG mission mechanics.

Valhalla is the latest of the Assassin’s Creed games to follow this newly revitalized formula and the only one to have been released with a version specifically for the PS5. There are still a few too many fetch quests and pointless collectibles scattered about the world for some people’s tastes, but the story is interesting and Ubisoft’s rendering of 800’s dark-age Europe is both brutal and hauntingly beautiful.

9/10

Resident Evil 4: Remake

The original Resident Evil 4 is not only considered one of the best in the franchise, but it’s often considered of the best horror games of all time. It follows former rookie detective — now hardboiled special agent — Leon S. Kennedy as he is sent on a top-secret mission to a remote eastern European village to find and recover the U.S. president’s missing daughter, Ashley Graham.

The remake stays remarkably true to the original, but gives it a high-fidelity makeover and adds a few features to bring it into the modern era. Two of the major areas that it expounds on are the exploration and puzzles. Both of these help to make it excel as an adventure game in addition to a survival horror shooter.

8/10

Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy is pretty firmly set in the JRPG genre as a franchise, but the newer games have been incorporating more and more adventure elements. FF16 actually has much less open-world exploration than predecessors like FF15 and FF7 Remake, but there is still a considerable amount of space to explore while completing quests and working your way through the Game of Thrones-like narrative.

Once players progress far enough in the story, they can select multiple different locations using an overworld map similar to the set up in western games like Dragon Age Inquisition. Most of these areas have a hub of NPCs that can provide services and give quests before the players set about exploring the world and fighting the enemies that prowl its various environments. That said, it would probably rank higher on this list if the various areas were a little bigger and felt a little more connected.

7/10

Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the premiere titles on the PS4, and its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, seems to be equally popular on the PS5. While it was largely overshadowed by Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok at the Game Awards during the year of its release, Forbidden West has still managed to garner critical acclaim. It has a Metascore of 88 and a user score of 7.9.

Players once again take on the role of Aloy, an outcast hunter in a sci-fi post-apocalyptic future where humanity has devolved to tribalism and massive machines in the shape of prehistoric creatures roam the Earth. The sequel builds on the proven mechanics established in Zero Dawn and gives players a whole new area to explore: The Forbidden West.

The dialogue can be a little clunky with its forge-forsaken futuristic lingo, but there are few games even on the market with environments this awe-inspiring.

6/10

Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy had a controversial launch taht led to a complex discussion about the nature of supporting problematic creators who own IPs. However you feel about JKR, though, it’s hard to deny that Avalanche Software managed to make the most immersive game set in the Wizarding World to date.

Players get to create their own fifth-year Hogwarts student and explore the grounds of the ancient school of witchcraft and wizardry. There’s a primary quest that involves investigating ancient magic and its connection to a violent goblin rebellion, but the real magic of the game comes from exploring the massive open world and solving the various puzzles that are contained within.

5/10

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection

The Uncharted series is undoubtedly one of the biggest PlayStation-exclusive adventure franchises. It chronicles the story of Nathan Drake, a quippy treasure hunter with expertise in exploring lost civilizations and getting into trouble with illegal organizations.

No new titles have been made since the PS5’s launch, but the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection contains digitally remastered versions of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. These are the two most recent games in the franchise and are arguably the best ones to date. Both combine the action, puzzle-solving, and climbing mechanics from the older games with new forms of open-world exploration. You even get to drive a jeep around a large area for certain parts.

4/10

Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered

Marvel’s Spider-Man was easily one of the most impressive action-adventure games on the PS4. It allowed players to battle villains and told a heart-wrenching origin story for Doctor Otto Octavius. On top of that, it allowed them to explore Marvel’s vision of New York City by swinging through the air on Peter Parker’s signature webs. Many have argued that the exploration alone was reason enough to call Spider-Man one of the best superhero games of all time.

So, it wasn’t that big of a surprise when Sony decided to have Insomniac Games remaster it to take advantage of the added horsepower in the PS5’s graphic engine. The new Remastered version of the game has all the web-slinging fun of the original, but now with ray-tracing and higher frame rates.

3/10

Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut

There have been a lot of remakes and remasters on this list, but few compare to the Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut. The base game has players taking the role of the samurai Jin Sakai as he seeks to rid the island of Tsushima of the Mongol invaders. The open world in this game has won acclaim for the beauty of its environments and the way it seamlessly transitions to cutscenes inspired by Japanese filmmakers such as Akira Kurosawa. The Director’s Cut adds dynamic 4K resolution targeting 60fps to these already impressive visuals, and the DualSense controller adds haptic feedback and trigger resistance.

This game doesn’t just digitally remaster one of the best open-world adventure games from the PS4 though, it also adds some pretty significant new content. Players will get to explore a whole new area called Iki Island and take part in the new Legends online Co-op mode to play through several challenge modes with their friends.

2/10

Elden Ring

You can’t have a list of the best adventure games without including Elden Ring. The latest fantasy adventure from the legendary developer From Software won Game of the Year, Best RPG, and Best Art Direction in the 2022 Game Awards.

Unlike most other From Soft games, Elden Ring encourages players to explore its massive open-world and seek out the treasures hidden throughout the lore-infused Lands Between. Some fans will be upset that this masterpiece of a game didn’t take the number one spot, but there’s one game that we think fits the bill a tiny bit better.

1/10

God of War: Ragnarok

All art is subjective, but God of War: Ragnarok is arguably one of the most atmospheric and beautiful games ever made. Santa Monica Studios’ vision of the Norse-inspired Midgard and the other realms connected to the World Tree is absolutely breathtaking. This game features some of the most stunning vistas and imaginative landscapes in gaming. But if that isn’t enough, there are two other reasons it takes the number one spot:

Even if you don’t agree it deserves to be at the top of the list, it’s hard to argue that the exploration and puzzles in Ragnarok are anything short of superb. This is a title that many gamers will be talking about for generations.

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Happy gaming!