We're now well into the current generation of consoles, but as time goes on, exclusives have become increasingly uncommon--especially if you're looking for games that aren't also on PC. That said, picking the best PS5-exclusive games of 2024 led us to a list of both terrific games from Sony's first-party studios and some third-party games that, at least for the time being, can only be found on PS5.

For this list, we compiled our picks for what we feel are the five best console exclusives released on PS5 in 2024. That means games also released on PC are eligible to be included here, which we think results in a list of terrific and diverse experiences across a range of genres.

If you're just looking for great new games to play on your PS5 regardless of exclusivity, be sure to check out our picks for the 10 best games of 2024, Game of the Year, and the overall best PS5 games to play right now.

You wouldn't have known it from his first appearance in the AR playroom that helped show off the PlayStation 4, but Astro has come a long way to become the new de facto face of PlayStation. The plucky little robot has earned his spot through impeccable platforming games built across PSVR, the PlayStation 5 launch pack-in, and now, a full-fledged PS5 exclusive.

That status would mean nothing if Astro Bot didn't have the gameplay chops to back it up. This is some of the most fine-tuned platforming not just on PlayStation, but on any platform to date. Every stage is bursting with creativity, with surprises around every corner. It's an homage to the greats of PlayStation history while also forging a path for Astro to become one himself. And best of all, it carries itself with a playful spirit that rewards curiosity and experimentation. Often elements are laid out just to play with rather than for the sake of completing an objective, and whenever you wonder if some hidden nook will lead to a fun reward, it will. Astro Bot is pure concentrated joy, and it's impossible to play without a big smile on your face.

"The simply titled Astro Bot is meant to be the cute robot's first significant foray into video games following a 2018 VR exclusive that earned praise but was stuck in its headset-only bubble, and a 2020 pack-in tech demo that hinted at more to come," Mark Delaney wrote in our Astro Bot review. "The beauty of the game, as suggested by its title, is that even players returning for their third Astro adventure will find hours upon hours of new experiences, collectively and magnificently presented as a parade of joyous sights, sounds, and adventures. This is a grand re-opening for Astro Bot, and it surely marks the start of what is destined to be a beloved series shooting for the moon."

-- Steve Watts

After four years of mulling over the numerous questions and theories Final Fantasy VII Remake gave life to, we finally received some answers--and more questions--earlier this year.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second installment of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, yet despite its name, it's hardly a shot-for-shot remake of the original series. Instead, Rebirth follows Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith, and the rest of the party as they navigate a sort of parallel universe. Though the game mostly sticks to the original story, this innovative take allows for deviations, keeping long-time fans just as on edge as newcomers.

Whereas Remake covered a relatively small portion of the original game, Rebirth gave us a first look at how Square would fully realize the vast world of Gaia and its people. Fortunately for us, it did so splendidly, fleshing out stories, areas, and beloved characters while still retaining the same charm that made the original a masterpiece. With meaningful side quests galore, the addition of a card game that had no right to be as good as it is, plenty of new, heart-wrenching moments, and absolutely gorgeous reimaginings of Gaia's various villages and biomes, Rebirth is a dream come true for both Final Fantasy 7 fans and action-RPG fans alike.

"[Final Fantasy VII Rebirth] is a superbly designed gameplay experience that instills a sense of freedom while also making exploration rewarding in a meaningful way," Tamoor Hussain wrote in our Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review. "Refined gameplay that makes character synergy a focal point breathes new life into the slick and satisfying combat, and all the while it reinforces the underlying themes of the story. As a game that has the unenviable task of living up to one of the strongest legacies in the medium, it is a worthy second chapter."

-- Jessica Cogswell

Helldivers 2 was a Rocket League-like moment for the series; much as the soccer-with-cars game broke through and attracted much more attention than its predecessor had, Helldivers 2 resonated in a way the original did not. The shift to a third-person perspective (compared with the original's isometric view) brought a more intimate and precise feel to the action while also amping up the series' strongest suit: chaos.

Whereas friendly fire might be a nuisance in many other games, here it makes for hilarious fun as teammates need to balance mowing down the countless foes approaching with trying not to shoot a friendly in the back or drop a bomb on their head. The third-person perspective provides you with less situational awareness than the isometric view, which leads to more ridiculous shenanigans that require coordination with teammates and, at worst, lead to a lot of laughs. The shooting is also rock-solid, and despite some turbulence with its live-service updates, Helldivers 2 remains one of the most entertaining games of the year, and arguably the single best co-op experience of 2024.

"In the ever-crowded live-service shooter landscape, Helldivers 2 manages to carve out a place for itself with its fun narrative tone, punchy combat, intense firefights, and rewarding progression track," Jordan Ramée wrote in our Helldivers 2 review. "Helldivers 2 has plenty of tense moments against gargantuan bugs and hulking tank-like machines, but the entire experience is largely meant to make you feel good and have a laugh with friends, a refreshing notion for how darkly serious most major shooters are today. This provides Helldivers 2 with a sensation of potential longevity and lasting power I haven't felt from most new live-service games in recent years. Helldivers 2 is just a really good time, and it banks on that being enough to convince you to stick around for a long time. Frankly, I'm sold--it's the most fun I've had in a new shooter in years."

-- Chris Pereira

Pacific Drive is not a horror game. The studio behind the game has been adamant about that since day one. Yes, it can be spooky; Ironwood Studio will agree. And yes, its threats are mysterious, harmful, and often cloaked in darkness, but this isn't a horror game. I respect that authorial intent--I really do. At the same time, the game is quite creepy, so whatever we want to call it when it comes time to sort it into a genre, I think it's pretty horror-ish. Horror is my favorite genre, but that's not the only reason I love Pacific Drive.

Pacific Drive is a roguelite game that manages to feel unlike anything else. That's extremely hard to do in an era positively flooded with roguelites. The beauty of its gameplay loop, set inside a vast stretch of procedurally generated roads and forests in the Pacific Northwest called the Olympic Exclusion Zone (OEZ), is how unpredictable it is. Its "enemies" aren't exactly that, lending credence to Ironwood's aforementioned claim. Instead, they are "anomalies"--weird things that happen in a big strange place where anyone inside of the OEZ is stuck there and everything there that isn't a person is… uh… it's hard to explain. Each anomaly has its own behaviors, and the trick is heading into a level behind the wheel of your station wagon, avoiding or outwitting these dynamic, unnatural events as best you can, while furthering the plot however you may be tasked with doing in that moment, all followed by you outracing a storm that collapses in on reality before it eats you up. With bits of roguelite and survival mechanics combined, and even something battle royale-esque as you outrun a storm to end each level, you can see how the game is a bit hard to explain.

Your best bet is to get behind the wheel and see it for yourself. The driving gameplay runs super deep, so you can create RPG-style builds for your car based on the specifics of the tumultuous road ahead. I never knew I'd appreciate a game that is, at a fundamental level, a driving sim of a sort, to this degree. As I said in our official Pacific Drive review, the game "sets out to create a world that fits comfortably in the New Weird genre but brings its own style and substance to it. The road from unreliable bucket of bolts to souped-up charger is a fascinating one whether you're unraveling the game's many mysteries or improving your wagon for its next road trip."

-- Mark Delaney

Even though it arrived after marquee horror remakes like Dead Space and several Resident Evil games, there was a lot of skepticism around the Silent Hill 2 remake project for a multitude of reasons. People doubted the publisher, developer, and just generally thought--and I'll personally fess up to this one--that it would be very difficult to rebottle the magic of the 2001 original. For that reason more than perhaps any other, Silent Hill 2 is a wonderful surprise.

The game's titular ghost town enveloped in iconic fog looks fantastic with a modern approach, and Bloober Team's way of making the combat enthralling without keeping the jank that was there before is a tremendous success. Playing it, I often found my shoulders tense and my breathing irregular, as just two enemies can often get out of hand in a hurry. The studio managed to revive all of the game's best parts, despite the PS2's grime and haze seeming to be so vital to the original game. It's reborn, and certainly reshaped, but never loses sight of the original's non-negotiable parts.

Even as it keeps intact those important pieces from yesteryear, it also impressively builds on it. The game takes twice as long to complete as the original, but what's new is welcome and of a piece with what was there before. The voice acting is a huge step up, too--so much so that I would entertain suggestions that this is the definitive version to play--and that's certainly true for someone who's never played the original anyway.

As I said in my Silent Hill 2 review, this remake is a restless dream come true: "...by staying true to the original game in extremely important ways and taking calculated risks born from an understanding of the source material, all while being supported further by some of the game's original brain trust, Bloober Team has done what was reasonably considered near-impossible."

-- Mark Delaney

We're now well into the current generation of consoles, but as time goes on, exclusives have become increasingly uncommon--especially if you're looking for games that aren't also on PC. That said, picking the best PS5-exclusive games of 2024 led us to a list of both terrific games from Sony's first-party studios and some third-party games that, at least for the time being, can only be found on PS5.

For this list, we compiled our picks for what we feel are the five best console exclusives released on PS5 in 2024. That means games also released on PC are eligible to be included here, which we think results in a list of terrific and diverse experiences across a range of genres.

If you're just looking for great new games to play on your PS5 regardless of exclusivity, be sure to check out our picks for the 10 best games of 2024, Game of the Year, and the overall best PS5 games to play right now.

You wouldn't have known it from his first appearance in the AR playroom that helped show off the PlayStation 4, but Astro has come a long way to become the new de facto face of PlayStation. The plucky little robot has earned his spot through impeccable platforming games built across PSVR, the PlayStation 5 launch pack-in, and now, a full-fledged PS5 exclusive.

That status would mean nothing if Astro Bot didn't have the gameplay chops to back it up. This is some of the most fine-tuned platforming not just on PlayStation, but on any platform to date. Every stage is bursting with creativity, with surprises around every corner. It's an homage to the greats of PlayStation history while also forging a path for Astro to become one himself. And best of all, it carries itself with a playful spirit that rewards curiosity and experimentation. Often elements are laid out just to play with rather than for the sake of completing an objective, and whenever you wonder if some hidden nook will lead to a fun reward, it will. Astro Bot is pure concentrated joy, and it's impossible to play without a big smile on your face.

"The simply titled Astro Bot is meant to be the cute robot's first significant foray into video games following a 2018 VR exclusive that earned praise but was stuck in its headset-only bubble, and a 2020 pack-in tech demo that hinted at more to come," Mark Delaney wrote in our Astro Bot review. "The beauty of the game, as suggested by its title, is that even players returning for their third Astro adventure will find hours upon hours of new experiences, collectively and magnificently presented as a parade of joyous sights, sounds, and adventures. This is a grand re-opening for Astro Bot, and it surely marks the start of what is destined to be a beloved series shooting for the moon."

-- Steve Watts

After four years of mulling over the numerous questions and theories Final Fantasy VII Remake gave life to, we finally received some answers--and more questions--earlier this year.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second installment of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, yet despite its name, it's hardly a shot-for-shot remake of the original series. Instead, Rebirth follows Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith, and the rest of the party as they navigate a sort of parallel universe. Though the game mostly sticks to the original story, this innovative take allows for deviations, keeping long-time fans just as on edge as newcomers.

Whereas Remake covered a relatively small portion of the original game, Rebirth gave us a first look at how Square would fully realize the vast world of Gaia and its people. Fortunately for us, it did so splendidly, fleshing out stories, areas, and beloved characters while still retaining the same charm that made the original a masterpiece. With meaningful side quests galore, the addition of a card game that had no right to be as good as it is, plenty of new, heart-wrenching moments, and absolutely gorgeous reimaginings of Gaia's various villages and biomes, Rebirth is a dream come true for both Final Fantasy 7 fans and action-RPG fans alike.

"[Final Fantasy VII Rebirth] is a superbly designed gameplay experience that instills a sense of freedom while also making exploration rewarding in a meaningful way," Tamoor Hussain wrote in our Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review. "Refined gameplay that makes character synergy a focal point breathes new life into the slick and satisfying combat, and all the while it reinforces the underlying themes of the story. As a game that has the unenviable task of living up to one of the strongest legacies in the medium, it is a worthy second chapter."

-- Jessica Cogswell

Helldivers 2 was a Rocket League-like moment for the series; much as the soccer-with-cars game broke through and attracted much more attention than its predecessor had, Helldivers 2 resonated in a way the original did not. The shift to a third-person perspective (compared with the original's isometric view) brought a more intimate and precise feel to the action while also amping up the series' strongest suit: chaos.

Whereas friendly fire might be a nuisance in many other games, here it makes for hilarious fun as teammates need to balance mowing down the countless foes approaching with trying not to shoot a friendly in the back or drop a bomb on their head. The third-person perspective provides you with less situational awareness than the isometric view, which leads to more ridiculous shenanigans that require coordination with teammates and, at worst, lead to a lot of laughs. The shooting is also rock-solid, and despite some turbulence with its live-service updates, Helldivers 2 remains one of the most entertaining games of the year, and arguably the single best co-op experience of 2024.

"In the ever-crowded live-service shooter landscape, Helldivers 2 manages to carve out a place for itself with its fun narrative tone, punchy combat, intense firefights, and rewarding progression track," Jordan Ramée wrote in our Helldivers 2 review. "Helldivers 2 has plenty of tense moments against gargantuan bugs and hulking tank-like machines, but the entire experience is largely meant to make you feel good and have a laugh with friends, a refreshing notion for how darkly serious most major shooters are today. This provides Helldivers 2 with a sensation of potential longevity and lasting power I haven't felt from most new live-service games in recent years. Helldivers 2 is just a really good time, and it banks on that being enough to convince you to stick around for a long time. Frankly, I'm sold--it's the most fun I've had in a new shooter in years."

-- Chris Pereira

Pacific Drive is not a horror game. The studio behind the game has been adamant about that since day one. Yes, it can be spooky; Ironwood Studio will agree. And yes, its threats are mysterious, harmful, and often cloaked in darkness, but this isn't a horror game. I respect that authorial intent--I really do. At the same time, the game is quite creepy, so whatever we want to call it when it comes time to sort it into a genre, I think it's pretty horror-ish. Horror is my favorite genre, but that's not the only reason I love Pacific Drive.

Pacific Drive is a roguelite game that manages to feel unlike anything else. That's extremely hard to do in an era positively flooded with roguelites. The beauty of its gameplay loop, set inside a vast stretch of procedurally generated roads and forests in the Pacific Northwest called the Olympic Exclusion Zone (OEZ), is how unpredictable it is. Its "enemies" aren't exactly that, lending credence to Ironwood's aforementioned claim. Instead, they are "anomalies"--weird things that happen in a big strange place where anyone inside of the OEZ is stuck there and everything there that isn't a person is… uh… it's hard to explain. Each anomaly has its own behaviors, and the trick is heading into a level behind the wheel of your station wagon, avoiding or outwitting these dynamic, unnatural events as best you can, while furthering the plot however you may be tasked with doing in that moment, all followed by you outracing a storm that collapses in on reality before it eats you up. With bits of roguelite and survival mechanics combined, and even something battle royale-esque as you outrun a storm to end each level, you can see how the game is a bit hard to explain.

Your best bet is to get behind the wheel and see it for yourself. The driving gameplay runs super deep, so you can create RPG-style builds for your car based on the specifics of the tumultuous road ahead. I never knew I'd appreciate a game that is, at a fundamental level, a driving sim of a sort, to this degree. As I said in our official Pacific Drive review, the game "sets out to create a world that fits comfortably in the New Weird genre but brings its own style and substance to it. The road from unreliable bucket of bolts to souped-up charger is a fascinating one whether you're unraveling the game's many mysteries or improving your wagon for its next road trip."

-- Mark Delaney

Even though it arrived after marquee horror remakes like Dead Space and several Resident Evil games, there was a lot of skepticism around the Silent Hill 2 remake project for a multitude of reasons. People doubted the publisher, developer, and just generally thought--and I'll personally fess up to this one--that it would be very difficult to rebottle the magic of the 2001 original. For that reason more than perhaps any other, Silent Hill 2 is a wonderful surprise.

The game's titular ghost town enveloped in iconic fog looks fantastic with a modern approach, and Bloober Team's way of making the combat enthralling without keeping the jank that was there before is a tremendous success. Playing it, I often found my shoulders tense and my breathing irregular, as just two enemies can often get out of hand in a hurry. The studio managed to revive all of the game's best parts, despite the PS2's grime and haze seeming to be so vital to the original game. It's reborn, and certainly reshaped, but never loses sight of the original's non-negotiable parts.

Even as it keeps intact those important pieces from yesteryear, it also impressively builds on it. The game takes twice as long to complete as the original, but what's new is welcome and of a piece with what was there before. The voice acting is a huge step up, too--so much so that I would entertain suggestions that this is the definitive version to play--and that's certainly true for someone who's never played the original anyway.

As I said in my Silent Hill 2 review, this remake is a restless dream come true: "...by staying true to the original game in extremely important ways and taking calculated risks born from an understanding of the source material, all while being supported further by some of the game's original brain trust, Bloober Team has done what was reasonably considered near-impossible."

-- Mark Delaney