Look, I think console exclusivity is an all-around dumb idea. You (the developer) might get more cash or publicity on the front end, but gamers generally hate the practice, and if your game is good, the long-term results (for everyone) are almost always less awesome than they could have been had you released it on multiple platforms.
And if your game isn’t good, then you’ve ridden the hype train to pseudo-success and given gamers another reason to dislike exclusivity deals. That being said, on relatively infrequent occasions there are games that are so good that you (the gamer) should seriously consider tracking them down, even if they’re on a platform you don’t normally spend a lot of time on.
You really need to give every game on this list a chance if you have access to a PS4. Alternatively, you can play these PS4 titles on a laptop (most of them).
If you don’t have access to either of the options, consider making friends with someone that has one. Maybe sell yourself into servitude as their personal masseur and beverage refiller if you have to.
So, what are the best PS4 exclusive games in 2020? 🖥️ 🎮
#1 The Best PS4 Exclusive Game: God of War
This sounds hyperbolic, but when I was tasked with writing this article and realized I would get to plug God of War (2018), I full-on giggled with excitement. No, I don’t work for Sony or Santa Monica Studios. If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, I’ve made an in-depth argument for why it’s one of the best possible representatives of video games as art.
Gameplay
If you’ve played any of the older God of War titles, but not God of War (2018), you’re really missing out. The old games were decently fun, but they were repetitive and a bit shallow—some more than others.
God of War (2018) is a blast to play, even without its excellent writing (more on that later). Ever-present NPC companions are often the bane of a gamer’s existence, but Atreus (Kratos’s son) is useful, quick, and smart—a perfect counterbalance to his much larger, much angrier dad.
His bow attacks (which can inflict a variety of status effects) and his roster of spirit animals complement Kratos’s powerful melee attacks nicely, giving you lots of strategic options.
A wide variety of interesting quests that span huge and beautiful environments are welcome adjuncts to the main story, but you can ignore them without missing anything critical if you’re pressed for time. Simply put, God of War (2018) is fun, engaging, and well-designed in every way.
Graphics
It’s a gorgeous game, too. Bright, vivid colors and jaw-dropping lighting make Midgard a treat to explore, and the game runs smoothly at all times. The character models are incredible as well; Atreus is a cute kid, so when he’s covered in ultra-realistic dirt and blood and having a bad time, it really tugs at the ol’ heartstrings.
And yeah, Kratos’s gargantuan pecs are pretty intimidating in 4K, too.
Story
Most people probably don’t come to action games hoping for a great story, but maybe they should. God of War (2018) has some of the best writing I’ve seen in a video game in recent memory.
The game opens with Kratos preparing a funeral pyre for his recently deceased wife, who, just before she died, asked her husband and son to scatter her ashes on the highest mountain in the realm. At first, Kratos and Atreus are about as dissimilar as a father and son can get, and they butt heads constantly. No spoilers, but the story of their evolving relationship is wonderfully written; it’s truly the centerpiece of the whole game.
Coop/Multiplayer
God of War (2018) is an exclusively single-player game.
Overall Review/Final Thoughts
I’ve awarded maybe a dozen games a perfect 10/10 score in the last 20 years, and God of War (2018) is the most recent to make the list. It’s so good that I’d even recommend buying a PS4 just for this game (while still grumbling about console exclusivity being a bad idea).
#2 Most Interesting Concept: Horizon Zero Dawn
I know I’m way behind on this one, but I haven’t actually finished Horizon Zero Dawn yet—I just started playing it about a week ago. I intend to finish it, though. It’s pretty great so far.
Gameplay
Horizon Zero Dawn is an awesome open-world game. It’s a narrative-driven action RPG with light stealth elements. There are skill trees, side quests, and a bit of crafting, but the main focus is squarely on protagonist Aloy and her journey for acceptance in a world that shuns her.
Combat demands precision above all else. Most enemies are mechanical and they have small, hard-to-hit weak points. Attacks that hit any other area deal greatly reduced damage, and Aloy is fairly fragile, so your strikes must be fast and accurate.
I don’t want to give too much away here, but some of the fights have unique and challenging mechanics that require some careful planning to overcome. No matter how you choose to build Aloy—for stealth, melee, or ranged combat—you should be able to overcome each boss in a way that jives with your preferred playstyle.
Graphics
Horizon Zero Dawn is a pretty game, but the human character models look a bit strange, at least to me. Aloy, in particular, has a really round face that makes her look like a little kid (even after the intro, when she is).
The game’s enemy design is its strongest visual element. The juxtaposition of advanced robotic creatures wandering the grasslands of a world inhabited by humans who wear animal skins and chuck spears is a neat aesthetic style…
Story
…but it does present some philosophical problems when it comes to the writing.
Horizon Zero Dawn takes place in a world where humans used to command highly advanced technology a long time ago, but some bad stuff happened, and now they’re living in the stone age again. Some remnants of that technology lie forgotten in old ruins—but others wander around in herds like cybernetic antelope.
When Aloy is a kid, she discovers a spiffy Bluetooth headset that contains the entirety of Wikipedia and can do some cool augmented reality stuff. The primitive tribes in the area shun her for being an “outcast,” and for some reason, she really cares what they think of her. I’m holding off judgment until I finish the main story, but I’m a little worried about what it’s ultimately going to say.
Still, the gameplay is pretty strong, and that’s arguably the main reason to play Horizon Zero Dawn.
Coop/Multiplayer
Horizon Zero Dawn is an exclusively single-player game.
Overall Review/Final Thoughts
I doubt the game will turn out to be a masterpiece from a narrative perspective, but as a beefy action RPG, it’s a very satisfying experience. I’m about 25 hours in and at roughly 50% completion, so for $1 per hour (or much less, if you wait for a sale), it’s a pretty good deal.
#3 Best Adventure Game: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
I liked the first three Uncharted games, but I loved the fourth one. It improves on what its predecessors did well and fixes some of the things that were long overdue for fixing.
Gameplay
If Indiana Jones and Lara Croft ever had a kid, that would be weird, but it’s the best way to describe Nathan Drake. The Uncharted games are exploration-heavy action titles with a fair amount of platforming and light puzzle-solving mixed in. Drake cracks wise like Indy but kills hundreds of dudes like Lara, which was kind of a bad thing in the older games.
One of my biggest complaints with the first three Uncharted games was that there’s simply too much combat. It’s repetitive, frequent, and distracts from the far stronger elements—namely, the exploration of really cool environments in search of legendary treasures.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End has finally, thankfully toned down the obnoxiously repetitive combat and focused the spotlight where it belongs. Stealth is a more viable option than ever before, and even when you’re forced to fight, you usually only have to gun down ten or twenty dudes at a time instead of 84,000.
Graphics
Personally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Nathan Drake looks and talks almost exactly like Nathan Fillion (who, by the way, actually starred in an awesome Uncharted fan film). The environments, though, really steal the show when it comes to the game’s graphics.
From cliffside Italian villas to long-lost pirate treasure islands, every location you visit during Uncharted 4 is breathtaking to look at.
Story
Uncharted 4 is (presumably) the last chapter in Nathan Drake’s main story, at least for the foreseeable future. At the game’s outset, he’s retired from the adventuring life and now runs a small salvage operation. Predictably, his newfound quiet life isn’t meant to last, and he’s pulled back into the globetrotting game before long.
In a nutshell, Nathan’s brother is in hot water with some nasty people, and the only way for Nathan to bail him out is to find Captain Henry Avery’s lost pirate treasure. The two of them visit a half-dozen unique locations, each of which has a unique atmosphere and backstory. The writing is even pretty solid, especially for an action game.
Coop/Multiplayer
Uncharted 4 has a handful of mixed PvE and PvP multiplayer modes, but they’re not great. All of them focus heavily on combat, which has always been the series’s weakest element. The single-player campaign is the main attraction here.
Overall Review/Final Thoughts
It’s rare for the last game in a series to be the best one, but I think that’s definitely true here. Playing the first three games would be helpful, but not absolutely necessary—the story in 4 is at least somewhat self-contained. If you love the Tomb Raider games prior to Angel of Darkness and/or the 2013 reboot and onward, Uncharted 4 satisfyingly scratches the same itch.
#4 Best Mellow Game for a Chill Evening: Journey
Including Journey (and the next game, The Last of Us Remastered) on a list of PS4 exclusives might be cheating, but it’s light cheating. Both games were released for the PS3, but in both cases, the remastered PS4 versions are different enough that I feel justified in counting them. Journey is a quiet, slow, and fascinating game—perfect for unwinding with when you’re not in the mood for loud explosions or complex RPG mechanics.
Gameplay
In Journey, you play as a small, robed desert-dweller with a nice scarf. Your objective is straightforward: reach the big mountain in the distance. You can glide for short distances by channeling some kind of magic stored in your scarf, and as you find upgrades to make it longer, you can glide farther.
The game features some light platforming, but no combat to speak of. The controls are exceedingly simple: you can move, jump, whistle, glide, and that’s about it. Most of the gameplay revolves around making slow but steady progress toward the mountain, which might sound boring, but it’s actually a nice blend of wondrous and relaxing.
Not gonna lie, I fell asleep while playing Journey once or twice, but not because it was boring.
Graphics
Journey’s most striking visual element is undoubtedly its use of color. Each biome you travel through has a central theme color, and you’re going to see a lot of it while you’re there—the desert is really brown, the caves are blue, the mountain is bright white. No environment makes heavy use of red, though, so your dude’s crimson robes always stand out.
The textures aren’t ultra-detailed, but they don’t need to be. Journey is about… well, the journey, not any particular pyramid or statue along the way. The environments evoke general emotions when taken in as a whole; you’re never supposed to stay in one place for long.
Story
Journey has only the vaguest framework of a narrative. Other than the opening title screen and ending credits, not a single word is ever written or spoken. It’s possible to tell a basic story without words, but Journey is not all that concerned with doing so.
Who you are, the origins of the ancient civilization that built the ruins you travel through, why getting to the mountain matters—none of these things are ever explained, or even really hinted at in much detail. Don’t pick up this game if you primarily want a compelling story; it has other strengths.
Coop/Multiplayer
Journey features a unique multiplayer component. If you’re connected to the PlayStation Network, other players may randomly and temporarily show up in your world (one at a time). Other than vague shouting, there is no way to communicate with one another within the game itself; that’s a deliberate and effective design choice.
Cruising around the desert with someone you don’t know and can’t talk to, but who shares your objective, is oddly comforting. Journey’s world is vast and desolate, so having some company once in a while is nice.
Overall Review/Final Thoughts
Journey is the kind of game you fire up when you’ve worked a 10-hour day and you just want to order a pizza and lounge in your jammies for a while. It’s relatively short, but it’s engaging without being a stimulant. It’s only $15, so give it a try.
#5 Best PS4 Exclusive Game Runner Up: The Last of Us Remastered
Along with Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War (2018), this game is currently tied for the second-best-selling PS4 game of all time—for good reason. (Uncharted 4 is first!) The Last of Us Remastered is a beautifully written, dark-yet-hopeful action/stealth/horror game.
Gameplay
There are a number of ways to play The Last of Us Remastered. You can shoot and beat everything to death, but at least on higher difficulties, that’s really not advised. You can rely primarily on craftable traps and bombs for a more engaging experience, or, best of all (in my view), you can take it slow and quiet.
The game is played from a third-person perspective, usually with Ellie (the 14-year-old you’re grudgingly responsible for) tagging along. The firearm mechanics are tight and satisfying, but ammo is quite scarce, so you can always chuck a beer bottle at someone’s head if you need to.
Still, the odds are usually stacked heavily against you in extended firefights, so stealth is the safest way to go. Staying low and out of sight jives better with the game’s atmosphere, anyway.
Graphics
The original version of The Last of Us on PS3 was a beautiful game, but the remastered version is even prettier. It looks as though the animators spent most of their energy on the character models, and to great effect. Joel (your character) and Ellie are always filthy, injured, tired, and mildly malnourished—and you can tell by looking at them.
The lighting also deserves special praise. Many areas are dark and wet, with nasty creatures hiding in the shadows. You could turn on your light to see better, but of course, then you’d be easier to spot. (One particular scene in a subway station—you’ll know it when you get there—is one of the most nerve-wracking stealth sections of all time.)
Outdoor areas are beautiful too, in a way, despite the fact that the world has been largely destroyed. All in all, The Last of Us Remastered is one of the best-looking PS4 games out there.
Story
A fungus (not a virus, this time) ravages the world in The Last of Us Remastered, but at least it’s not (exactly) another zombie story. Protagonist Joel, a hard-working middle-aged contractor, has a young daughter who doesn’t survive the initial outbreak. Twenty years later, Joel still hasn’t come to terms with her death—at all.
An older, grumpier Joel unwillingly finds himself in a new father-daughter relationship when he’s tasked with escorting Ellie through a dangerous infected zone for some kind of top-secret mission. He tries not to get attached to her, but we wouldn’t have much of a story if he succeeded in that, now would we?
There are human bad guys and scary monsters in this game, but they’re not scary in the same way that horror game enemies tend to be. The Joel-Ellie relationship is written so well that, when you’re low on health and locked in melee combat with a gross monster, you’re not scared primarily because Joel might die—you’re scared by the thought of what will happen to Ellie if he does.
Coop/Multiplayer
There is a tacked-on, half-baked, and uninteresting PvP mode in The Last of Us Remastered, but it’s hardly worth mentioning. Stick with the single-player campaign for sure.
Overall Review/Final Thoughts
I really can’t think of anything bad to say about The Last of Us Remastered—nothing significant, anyway. It truly is one of the best games of all time.
#6 Best Horror Game: Until Dawn
Until Dawn doesn’t have a lot of replay value. You play it once, maybe twice, and then it’s pretty much time to trade it in. But that’s okay—a game doesn’t have to have 100+ hours of replay value to be great.
Gameplay
Until Dawn from Supermassive Games is a story-driven interactive movie in the vein of Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls. Gamers seem to either love or hate these kinds of games, but even if you’ve historically been on the “hate” side of the fence, I still think you should give Until Dawn a chance.
There’s a unique save system in place here that forces you to commit to your decisions. Once you’ve made the call to run, hide, or fight, there’s no going back and reloading a checkpoint if you screw up, because there aren’t any. The story unfolds in one of hundreds of different ways based on how you choose to guide the protagonists through it.
Gameplay-wise, there isn’t much to test your reflexes—strings of quick-time events here and there, and a bit of careful joystick maneuvering, but that’s about it. This is one of those games you play with your mind more than your hands.
Graphics
The environments, lighting, and use of color in Until Dawn are all fantastic, but the character models look a little strange. People’s faces are too square, and in some cases, their features look a bit off in various ways. The game looks as though it makes use of some kind of facial mapping technology, but the end result just isn’t quite as impressive as it was probably meant to be.
Don’t be too hard on the game for its slightly cheesy visuals, though. Its graphics are more than sufficient to get the job done. (That job is freaking you right the hell out, to be clear.)
Story
A group of teens meet in a remote mountain-top cabin to do typical dumb teenager stuff, and two of them die in a freak accident. (Or was it an accident?) A few years later, the survivors reunite at the same cabin, having learned absolutely nothing.
Yes, the story is straight out of an 80s slasher B-movie—at first. Yes, the protagonists are painfully stupid at times, but that’s intentional, and it (kind of) serves a narrative purpose. I can’t say much more without giving away something important, just know that all is not what it seems during the first half of the game…
Coop/Multiplayer
Until Dawn is a strictly single-player game.
Overall Review/Final Thoughts
A lot of people who started Until Dawn never finished it. I can’t entirely blame them, but I also know that if you power through the first half, two things happen: it gets a lot better, and you’ll suddenly understand why the first half of the game is structured as it is. No more innuendo. Just go play it – it’s one of the best horror games out there.
Final Words
If you read this whole article, then you already know which game I’m going to give my “overall best choice” award to, so I’ll just get it over with. The best PS4 exclusive of all time is…
God of War (2018)! Pretend you’re shocked. Seriously, though, it’s ridiculously good. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Okay, fine. I’ll at least pick a runner-up. Other than God of War (2018), the best PS4 exclusive is…
The Last of Us Remastered! Not gonna lie, once God of War (2018) was out of the running, this was actually a pretty tough choice, with Uncharted 4 being a very close contender. Ultimately, though, as fascinating and enjoyable as the final chapter of Nathan Drake’s story is, the tale of Joel and Ellie is deeper, more emotionally impactful, and more memorable.
All but one of the games on this list are fairly violent, so if that’s not your thing, Journey would seem to be the obvious choice. If you’re after a fantastic story first and foremost, God of War (2018), The Last of Us Remastered, and Uncharted 4 would all be safe bets. Until Dawn and Horizon Zero Dawn have stories that are decent, but not great. If you can’t really fit all of these games on your PlayStation, consider getting a high-quality SSD for PS4 so they could wait for you.
Finally, if you’re after some kind of engaging multiplayer component, Journey is, again, the only game here that I can really recommend. All of the others are either single-player only or have craptastic multiplayer modes that just shouldn’t have been shoehorned in.
Well, there you have it—the best PS4 exclusives to date. While we’re waiting for PS5, be sure to click over to our lists of the best RPGs of all time and the best first-person shooters out there.