2024 is one of PlayStation’s best years yet, even though it isn’t filled with first-party exclusives. Outside of Astro Bot, Sony didn’t really release any game that’s noteworthy from the usual suspects this year, preferring to let its partners take all the spotlight while it focuses on its upcoming slate of first-party exclusives, highlighted by Ghost of Yotei next year, and the PlayStation 5 Pro.
But even in what should have been its worst year, PlayStation still found a way to trump the competition. However, it wasn’t a clean sweep either.
Nearly every month saw audiences talk about either one of the best or the worst games in recent years and the one thing they all had in common was that they were exclusive to the PlayStation 5.
Save perhaps for Palworld’s unprecedented success in January, the most recent wave of PlayStation exclusives dominated conversations for both the wrong and right reasons.
From Foamstars to Helldivers 2, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Stellar Blade, and most recently, Black Myth: Wukong, Concord, the Silent Hill 2 and Until Dawn remakes, it feels as if we’re seeing the best and worst that gaming had to offer at the same time, courtesy of PlayStation.
Until Dawn and Concord, in particular, are two of the worst games of the current console generation by far. But, Black Myth: Wukong and Stellar Blade, for all their expected impact on the Asian video game industry and influence on Steam, are just as divisive. Even the leading Game of the Year candidate couldn’t escape the negative chatter as Square Enix stayed silent about its sales for a long time before eventually confirming that the award-winning sequel fell short of expectations—surprisingly enough, Square Enix had nothing to say about Final Fantasy 16 and its struggles on PC.
The year isn’t over yet and there’s still a handful of upcoming exclusives coming to the PlayStation platform, the chief among which are Fantasian Neo Dimension and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered on December 5 and December 9, respectively.
But we aren’t exactly expecting those games to generate as much chatter as the previously mentioned titles. However, we can look forward to outrage if, among the smorgasbord of PlayStation exclusives, one doesn’t end up taking home the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards in December.
Mind you, we’re not just stirring things up for the sake of it either. Studio Zero’s Metaphor: ReFantazio, the brainchild of people who previously worked on the Persona franchise, including former series director Katsura Hashino, is one of the best-reviewed games of the year with a “94”, tied with Astro Bot and two points higher than Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Whether or not this is because Xbox has officially bowed out of the console wars and effectively threw Xbox owners under the bus while Nintendo prepares for the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 remains to be seen, but it is interesting that the best games of 2024 are PlayStation exclusives as are the most divisive games of the year.
It will be interesting to see if we’ll see more of the same in 2025 when PlayStation welcomes both new exclusives and multiplatform titles into the fold, including Grand Theft Auto 6, and a growing list of PlayStation 5 Pro Enhanced titles.
