22 Video Games You Absolutely Have to Play, According to…

About this gallery:

Shuhei Yoshida has spent decades around great games, earning a reputation for recognizing the ones that truly stand apart. These 22 titles are personal recommendations from PlayStation’s longtime executive, ranging from obvious classics to more surprising favorites that clearly left an impression.

Rather than ranking them, the list follows their release dates, turning Yoshida’s picks into a timeline of changing tastes and ideas. Which games would also make your list, and which choice would you challenge first?

| © Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg

1. Nine Sols (2024)

A revenge story wrapped in Taoist mythology and futuristic machinery, Nine Sols gives the Metroidvania formula a sharp identity of its own. Combat revolves around precisely timed deflections, talisman attacks, and learning when not to swing wildly at whatever is trying to kill you. The hand-drawn world is beautiful without ever feeling safe, while Yi’s increasingly complicated mission adds emotional weight beneath the boss fights. Victory usually arrives one painful lesson after confidence has completely disappeared. | © Red Candle Games

2. Sifu (2022)

Getting older after every defeat sounds like a terrible motivational system, yet it gives Sifu its brilliant sense of urgency. Each failed encounter ages the protagonist, increasing his power while steadily reducing how many mistakes remain available. The martial arts combat turns crowded rooms, furniture, bottles, ledges, and unlucky henchmen into parts of an improvised action sequence. Mastering one hallway can take several lifetimes, but eventually clearing it without being touched feels better than most cinematic boss battles. | © Sloclap

3. Before Your Eyes (2021)

Blinking is normally the least interesting thing a player can do, until Before Your Eyes transforms it into an emotional threat. Using a camera to detect each blink, the story moves between memories whether you are ready to leave them or not. That simple idea becomes a surprisingly powerful way to explore childhood, ambition, regret, and the comforting lies people build around their own lives. Trying to keep your eyes open soon becomes both a gameplay challenge and an act of denial. | © GoodbyeWorld Games

4. Returnal (2021)

Selene crash-lands on Atropos, dies horribly, wakes beside the wreckage, and discovers that the planet has no intention of letting her leave. Returnal combines third-person shooting with roguelike progression, bullet-hell attack patterns, and a psychological mystery that becomes less comforting with every discovered fragment. Its movement feels wonderfully fast and responsive, allowing players to dash through battles that initially look impossible. Panic may guide the first few runs, but survival eventually starts resembling skill. Mostly. | © Housemarque

5. Inscryption (2021)

Explaining too much about Inscryption would be like revealing the trapdoor before someone enters the room. What begins as a sinister card game inside a grimy cabin gradually expands through puzzles, talking cards, hidden systems, and twists that completely reshape the experience. The game constantly plays with expectations, genres, and the uncomfortable relationship between the player and whoever appears to be controlling the rules. Even building a winning deck feels suspicious when the cards seem to know more than you do. | © Daniel Mullins Games

6. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance (2021)

Hundreds of items, alternate routes, new characters, brutal bosses, and increasingly ridiculous combinations turn The Binding of Isaac: Repentance into the definitive version of an already enormous roguelike. Every trip through Isaac’s basement can produce a completely different build, ranging from carefully balanced to visually incomprehensible. Understanding item synergies becomes almost as important as dodging attacks, although experimentation often ends in disaster. An innocent-looking pickup can rescue a run, ruin it instantly, or somehow manage both at once. | © Nicalis

7. Ghost of Tsushima (2020)

Instead of covering the screen with glowing arrows, Ghost of Tsushima lets the wind guide Jin Sakai through forests, villages, shrines, and battlefields. That elegant navigation system suits a story built around the conflict between tradition and survival, as Jin abandons samurai principles to fight the invading Mongol army more effectively. Sword duels carry real tension, stealth offers ruthless alternatives, and the island regularly demands a stop for photographs. Saving Tsushima is important, but so is capturing the perfect sunset. | © Sucker Punch Productions

8. Genshin Impact (2020)

The gacha mechanics attract most of the arguments, but the scale and ambition behind Genshin Impact are difficult to dismiss. Its enormous world mixes exploration, puzzles, quests, hidden areas, and battles built around combining elemental abilities across a four-character party. New regions have steadily expanded Teyvat far beyond its original boundaries, each introducing distinct cultures, stories, and environmental ideas. It is technically possible to play briefly, although the game has developed several effective methods for making that plan collapse. | © miHoYo

9. Hades (2020)

Death sends Zagreus back home, where his disappointed father, complicated relatives, and growing collection of romantic problems are waiting. Hades makes every failed escape attempt worthwhile by advancing character relationships alongside its endlessly flexible combat. Divine boons, six weapons, upgrades, and modifiers ensure that no two runs unfold quite the same way. The writing gives even minor characters memorable personalities, while the action remains fast enough to discourage excessive reflection until the room has stopped trying to murder you. | © Supergiant Games

10. Nioh 2 (2020)

Anyone who thought the first game needed more weapons, demons, loot, skill trees, and intimidating menus received exactly what they asked for with Nioh 2. Creating a half-yokai warrior opens an intricate combat system built around stances, Ki management, Soul Cores, magic, and temporary transformations. The learning curve can resemble a vertical wall, especially when an ordinary enemy ends a promising run in seconds. Once its systems click, however, battles become extraordinarily technical, aggressive, and satisfying. | © Team Ninja

11. Fall Guys (2020)

Watching a bean dressed as a pineapple fail to climb a small ledge remains one of online gaming’s most reliable sources of entertainment. Fall Guys turns obstacle-course television into a chaotic multiplayer competition filled with collapsing platforms, spinning hazards, team betrayals, and poorly timed jumps. Winning requires genuine precision, but luck and nearby strangers can undo even the cleanest performance. The costumes keep everything cheerful, even when another player grabs you inches from the finish line for no defensible reason. | © Mediatonic

12. Dead Cells (2018)

Speed matters in Dead Cells, but adaptability decides whether a run survives beyond its opening stages. Weapons, traps, mutations, and branching routes constantly force players to work with whatever the island provides rather than waiting for a perfect build. Its responsive controls make dodging, parrying, and attacking feel remarkably precise, which also removes most excuses when something goes wrong. Permanent upgrades provide steady progress, but every confident sprint can still end with an embarrassing encounter against an enemy previously considered harmless. | © Motion Twin

13. Doki Doki Literature Club (2017)

Pastel artwork, cheerful music, and an after-school poetry club make Doki Doki Literature Club look harmless for exactly as long as it needs to. Familiar visual-novel choices gradually give way to psychological horror, technical manipulation, and moments that deliberately make the player question what the game is capable of doing. Its greatest trick is using cuteness as camouflage rather than contrast. Revealing more would spoil the ambush, so it is probably safer to remain suspicious of everyone—and especially the cupcakes. | © Team Salvato

14. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (2017)

A shiny visual overhaul did nothing to soften the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy’s occasionally vicious platforming. All three adventures return with rebuilt environments, updated animation, improved cinematics, time trials, and Coco available across more stages. Beneath the modern presentation, however, remain the same narrow bridges, mistimed jumps, hidden boxes, and suspiciously placed enemies that ruined childhood afternoons. Nostalgia may encourage players to begin the trilogy, but stubborn refusal to lose usually becomes the stronger motivation before long. | © Vicarious Visions

15. Let It Die (2016)

A skateboarding Grim Reaper named Uncle Death welcomes players to the Tower of Barbs, immediately establishing that subtlety will not be part of the experience. Let It Die combines punishing melee combat, disposable fighters, bizarre equipment, grotesque enemies, and mushrooms whose effects are not always reassuring. Its free-to-play systems can interfere with the fun, but the strange atmosphere gives every climb an unpredictable energy. Death is expected; dignity usually disappears several floors before it. | © Grasshopper Manufacture

16. Bloodborne (2015)

Yharnam offers no friendly tutorial, useful tourism office, or convincing reason to remain after sunset. Bloodborne replaces cautious defensive play with aggressive combat, allowing hunters to recover recently lost health by immediately striking back. Transforming weapons and firearm parries give battles a fast, savage rhythm, while the Gothic setting slowly reveals horrors far stranger than werewolves and angry villagers. Every answer creates several worse questions, and eventually even looking at the moon begins to feel like a terrible idea. | © FromSoftware

17. Super Time Force Ultra (2014)

Time travel becomes a tactical tool in Super Time Force Ultra, allowing players to rewind failed attempts and fight alongside recordings of their previous actions. One character attacks from a distance, another charges forward, and several earlier versions of the plan collapse simultaneously in the background. The result looks chaotic, but carefully overlapping those timelines creates surprisingly clever solutions. The PlayStation edition also includes Shuhei Yoshida as a playable character armed with a smartphone, which is difficult to improve upon as executive representation. | © Capybara Games

18. Journey (2012)

No dialogue is needed for Journey to create one of gaming’s most memorable relationships. A lone robed traveler crosses a vast desert toward a distant mountain, discovering ruins and fragments of a lost civilization along the way. Another player may quietly join the pilgrimage, yet communication remains limited to movement and musical calls. That restriction makes every act of cooperation feel unusually personal. The entire adventure lasts only a few hours, but its final stretch can remain vivid for years. | © thatgamecompany

19. Sound Shapes (2012)

Platforms do more than support the player in Sound Shapes; they also help create the soundtrack. Every moving object, hazard, collectible, and environmental element contributes to the music, turning each stage into something between a platforming challenge and a playable album. Tracks featuring Beck, deadmau5, and Jim Guthrie give the campaign a wonderfully varied identity, while the creation tools invite players to compose levels of their own. Sometimes jumping repeatedly really can qualify as musical participation. | © Queasy Games

20. Persona 4 (2008)

A murder mystery hidden inside television screens gives Persona 4 its supernatural hook, but daily life in Inaba provides its heart. School, friendships, part-time jobs, rainy afternoons, and awkward social encounters share the calendar with turn-based battles against manifestations of buried emotions. The Investigation Team feels less like a collection of party members and more like an actual group of friends. Solving the case matters, though choosing how to spend one free Sunday can somehow produce even greater anxiety. | © Atlus

21. Shadow of the Colossus (2005)

Sixteen towering creatures stand between Wander and his desperate hope of restoring Mono to life. Rather than filling its world with conventional enemies and dungeons, Shadow of the Colossus treats every giant as a moving puzzle that must be studied, climbed, and killed. The empty landscape gives the journey a haunting stillness, while each victory feels less heroic than the last. What begins as an epic quest gradually becomes a quiet examination of obsession, sacrifice, and consequences. | © Team Ico

22. Ape Escape (1999)

The original DualShock controller was still unfamiliar to many players when Ape Escape made both analog sticks essential. Movement occupied the left stick, while the right controlled nets, clubs, propellers, vehicles, and other gadgets used to capture time-traveling monkeys. The concept turned new hardware into a playful adventure rather than an extended technical demonstration. Shuhei Yoshida served as executive producer, giving this particular recommendation a personal connection—and establishing his professional history with runaway apes surprisingly early. | © Japan Studio