While the journey through Demon’s Souls is one that has resulted in much frustration and higher blood pressure than I would normally put myself through just to play a video game, it is a wonderful showcase of what the PS5 can do and the perfect game for those that want to challenge themselves. Combined with the impressive graphical quality and those incredibly fast loading speeds, you have the perfect fodder for the ‘onebro’ that secretly lives inside you.

Some interesting ideas combined with a relatively short run time makes Chronos good for one or two playthroughs that will genuinely make you appreciate its successor even more.

Warriors games come in all shapes and sizes, but Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is one of the best. Great fun for green players and veterans alike, this alt-history rollercoaster delivers what you expect plus more.

While it loses some of its sheen, this port of everyone’s favourite banana republic nation-building sim has everything you will find on the other platforms, giving you the ability to control everything in your island nation no matter where you are.

Immortals: Fenyx Rising is a wonderfully crafted epic in which Ubisoft Quebec celebrate rather than shay away from their influences to deliver humour and action in equal doses.

You can easily imagine a world where the XIII remake is a success, but sadly this isn’t that world. Broken is about the nicest thing that can be said about this remaster that is somehow worse than the original.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure, is a big step in a fresh direction for the overall franchise. Leaving the tried and true ‘Play, Create, Share’ model behind is a gutsy move from Sumo Digital, but is one that greatly benefits the final product, with each level clearly benefiting from the extra TLC that comes from not dedicating time to an all-consuming creation mode.

A masterclass in worldbuilding, the punk aesthetic of Umurangi Generation is a sight to behold. Snap your way through a series of increasingly provocative spaces, soaking in every facet of this incredible journey.

The next-gen version of NBA 2K is a true step forward in both graphical prowess and inclusivity. An improved attitude towards micro-transactions also makes this the friendliest NBA 2K has been in a long time.

Harmonix has always been a studio whose love for music infuses every title they’ve had a hand in. Fuser feels like the first time they’ve finally found a way to guide players towards engaging with said music on a deeper level than other rhythm titles, but in the process may turn away anybody who solely desires to recreate songs on plastic instruments or is hell-bent on chasing high scores while notes drop at blistering speeds.

The most interesting and inventive campaign in the franchise makes this well worth the price of entry. Sadly the multiplayer modes don’t live up to the high bar set by the single player mode.

A hearty slice of Viking pie, goes great with a new console and a flagon of mead. Ubisoft have taken the Creed to a new level with their trip to the Nordic settlement of merry old England.

Though only an evolution and not a further revolution to the Spider-Man formula, Miles’ journey is full of heart, is riveting to play through and a joy to just kick back and immerse yourself in.

As well as being an excellent demonstration of the future ahead for owners of the PS5, Astro’s Playroom serves as an excellent, albeit brief platformer. You’ll find that just as the game really begins to come into its own, it ends, and that’s an almighty shame, but will likely you leaving salivating at the prospect of what is to come for Astro Bot and friends.

It’s Pikmin 3, a pretty great game from 2013 with pretty minimal additions, but that won’t matter as it’s now on a system that a lot of people actually own.

The world of the Chicken Police does not disappoint, even if the detective noir story at its heart is predictable. Fantastic character and voice work make for a compelling ride nonetheless.

You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and with so many links in the Sakuna chain, you expect something to give way at some stage – but it never happens. Every part of the gameplay experience holds up, and meshes together so well that it takes several disparate elements, that for all intents and purposes, simply shouldn’t go together, and brings them together in a wonderful symphony that must be played before it can be truly appreciated.

Filled with game-breaking bugs and clunky mechanics, Remothered: Broken Porcelain will give you more than a fair share of horrible, awful memories, but not in the way that was intended.

The more you dive into the metaphors and abstractions that are brought to bare, the more affecting this experience will be. Developers Punk Notion succeed in what they have built here, weaving a vivid tale more than worth the few hours of your time.

It was a gamble on Sega’s part to make such major changes to a tried and true formula, even more bewildering given its recent meteoric rise in Western markets. If Yakuza: Like A Dragon proves anything, it’s that fortune does indeed favour the bold.

A great idea that never quite reaches its full promise, Watch Dogs: Legion is still a cracking bit of techno fun. Come for the hacking and stay for the engaging story and cockney accents.

AquaNox: Deep Descent is by no means a bad game, nor is it a particularly good one. It is instead exceedingly average, something for people like myself who carry fond memories of vaporizing intergalactic cat people to while away an hour or so at a time over a few weeks. If you don’t happen to fit inside this very particular demographic, then I strongly doubt AquaNox: Deep Descent is the best place to start within the genre.

Little Hope is a solid spooky story best enjoyed with popcorn and friends. The tension is high, the fear is real, and the mechanics are improved from the previous Dark Pictures instalment. If you’re interested in some witchy goodness and moral judgements, this might be the spooky story for you.

While not difficult, The survivalists hooked me in with its take on the survival genre and the creative use of the local monkey population to help me survive.

There’s an undeniable thrill in exploring your house from a lowered viewpoint and while the racing itself is nothing new, the versatility of the experience means you don’t even have to pull out the gates to have a bit of fun or to give the kids a novel distraction.

While I believe the story could have been delivered more smoothly, there is no faulting the effort gone into voicing all conversations and making sure that the simple gameplay loop remains engaging for many hours. There’s an amateurish, almost cobbled-together feel about Cloudpunk in general, which luckily connects with its aesthetic, coming together in a nice, shiny, pixelated indie pie.

Disc Room might look like a simple game, but there’s some serious depth with its mechanics and old-school style challenge. The addition of accessibility options goes a long way to making it playable everyone, not just those that revel in the challenge.

Ray’s The Dead has a tonne of potential, and I’m thrilled that Ragtag stuck with their work and didn’t allow this game that already centred on the dead to die in real-life too. There are rough edges, many of which can be easily rectified with some patching, but there’s something to Ray’s adventure that will constantly put a smile on your face.