15 Best PS2 Launch Games

Kessen is a real-time tactics game from Koei, set in feudal Japan at the end of the Sengoku period. The eastern Tokugawa clan fights the western Toyotomi clan, and you command up to 100,000 troops, from archers and riflemen to the cavalry. It was a launch game in Japan and North America, where Electronic Arts published it, and for a while it was the only real-time wargame on the PS2.

The story plays out in cutscenes that feel a bit like old samurai films. Reviewers saw it as a game for history buffs with a good but flawed presentation. It still won a special prize at the PlayStation Awards in 2000 and came second in GameSpot's console strategy award, behind Ogre Battle 64. Koei followed it with Kessen II and Kessen III.

Dynasty Warriors 2 is the game that made the series what it is today. Omega Force built it for Koei, and it came out everywhere outside Japan as a launch title. The name is a little misleading. In Japan it was the first Shin Sangokumusou, a fresh start, and the English number 2 made people think it was a sequel to the earlier Dynasty Warriors.

This is where Free Mode and Musou Mode first appeared. NextGen pointed out that it was "the first third-person, 3D action game to feature a real-time battlefield", and that was a big deal in 2000. Plenty of players still remember it fondly. It came back on the PlayStation Network in 2012.

Summoner is a big Western RPG from Volition, published by THQ as a launch title. You play Joseph, who was born with the mark of the Summoner. As a child he called up a demon to save his village from Orenian soldiers. The demon killed the invaders, and then it killed his family and the rest of the village too. Nine years later the armies of Orenia come back, and Joseph has to face the prophecy.

Only twenty-three people made it, and Scott Lee wrote most of the music. Critics were split. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it 6, 4 and 4.5 out of 10, while GamePro scored the graphics and sound 4.5 out of 5. It came to Windows and Mac OS the year after.

FantaVision is a puzzle game about fireworks. Director Katsuyuki Kanetaka got the idea from the shows he watched at Lake Biwa as a kid. He had no programming experience, so he built the first version in Klik & Play. Sony liked the pitch, Shuhei Yoshida supervised it, and a small team finished it in a short time.

You steer a line from your cursor with the left stick and catch flares of the same colour with the X button, then set them off. Catch the white stars and you spell out "Starmine" for a bonus. The PS1 could not draw that many effects at once, which is why it waited for the PS2. It launched the same day as the console in North America with a new two-player mode. A remake, Fantavision 202X, came out on PS5 and Windows.

Unreal Tournament is the arena shooter Epic Games and Digital Extremes released on Windows in 1999. Infogrames brought it to the PS2 on October 26, 2000, and to the Dreamcast a few months later. It is often called one of the greatest games ever made, though reviewers noted that the console ports had their limits.

The modes are the reason to play it. Capture the Flag and Domination were built by lead programmer Steve Polge, and Last Man Standing counts your deaths instead of your kills. The PS2 version works with a USB keyboard and mouse, so you can play it much like the PC version. Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 followed, but this port is where the series started on PlayStation.

Eternal Ring is FromSoftware's first-person fantasy RPG, published in North America by Agetec. It was a launch title in Japan and North America. A young magician named Cain is sent by his king to the Island of No Return, where nobody has ever come back alive, and the island is full of beasts and dragons.

The magic system is the fun part. You make rings out of gems, and the gems you use decide what the ring does. Only two elements work on one ring, so putting in a third is a waste. Reviews were mixed, but NextGen called it "the first RPG available for the system, and you could do worse." Players who like FromSoftware's old games still recommend it next to King's Field.

Street Fighter EX3 is Arika's 3D Street Fighter, published by Capcom. It came out in Japan on March 4, 2000 as a PS2 exclusive launch title, making it the first Street Fighter on the console, and reached North America on launch day. Classic Street Fighter characters fight Arika's own cast, and the big new idea is tag teams.

The Guard Break from the earlier EX games is gone, replaced by the Surprise Blow, which costs no super meter. Critical Parade calls your tag partner in so you both fight at once for a short time, and Momentary Combo lets you follow one special move with another. In 2018 Arika released Fighting EX Layer, a spiritual successor to the whole EX series.

EverGrace is an early 3D action RPG from FromSoftware, led by producer Masanori Takeuchi. It came out in Japan in April 2000, and Agetec released it in North America in October 2000 as a launch title. You get two full adventures, one for Darius and one for Sharline, with different characters and monsters in each.

FromSoftware planned it for the PS2 from the start. The console was not out yet and the team did not really understand how powerful it was, so development was mostly trial and error. Takeuchi said many of their ideas could never have worked on the PS1. Players digging through FromSoftware's early games often name it as a favourite.

Dead or Alive 2 started in arcades and came to the Dreamcast and PS2 in 2000. Tecmo released the PS2 version in Japan on March 30, 2000, with new stages added. North America got DOA2: Hardcore as a launch title. It is considered one of the greatest fighting games of all time, and by 2001 all versions together had sold over 1.5 million copies.

The stages are what people remember. They have several levels, so you can knock someone off a ledge and keep fighting below, or juggle them into a wall. The two kinds of hold let you counter attacks instead of just blocking them. TheGamer called Hardcore the "2nd best launch game for the PS2" in 2020. It was re-released on the PlayStation Network in North America in 2015.

Smuggler's Run is an off-road driving game from Angel Studios, published by Rockstar Games as a launch title on October 26, 2000. You join a gang of international smugglers and drive illegal cargo across three huge open levels. The U.S. Border Patrol, the CIA and rival smugglers all try to stop you.

What made it special in 2000 was the freedom. There are no tracks, just big open maps where you pick your own route. You can play the career or the arcade mode with one or two players. It sold well enough to join the PS2 Greatest Hits line. Angel Studios also made Midnight Club for the same launch day.

Armored Core 2 is the fourth game in FromSoftware's mech series. FromSoftware partnered with Agetec and released it in North America on October 26, 2000 as a launch title. You build your own mech and take missions for money. Fail a mission and its costs still come out of your balance.

The Arena lets you fight other mechs whenever you like. Reviewers praised the graphics, and Famitsu gave it 33 out of 40. NextGen called it "Definitely one of the best titles currently available for PS2" and added that it was worth owning unless you hate mechs. Mech fans still recommend it as a good place to start. A direct sequel, Armored Core 2: Another Age, came out in 2001.

Ridge Racer V is Namco's arcade racer, made to launch with the PS2. It came out in Japan on March 4, 2000 and in North America on October 26, 2000. Namco started building it in 1999, and names like Ridge Racer 2000 and R5 were on the table. It is the only main Ridge Racer on the PS2.

All fourteen courses are set in Ridge City, and the cars come from five made-up makers like Kamata and Rivelta. The music is a big part of it, with Boom Boom Satellites and German DJ Mijk van Dijk on the soundtrack. Not everyone was impressed. In 2002 Edge called it one of the "soulless and derivative" launch games. Racing fans still recommend it anyway, and it later came to arcades as Ridge Racer V: Arcade Battle.

SSX is the snowboarding game that started the series. EA Canada made it for the PS2 launch in October 2000, and it was the first title released under EA Sports Big. The courses are huge and over the top, with big jumps and rails everywhere. Every trick fills your boost, so showing off is also how you win.

Winning medals unlocks new courses, boards and riders, and improves your rider too. The series came from Steven Rechtschaffner, a former pro skier. SSX was a commercial success, and critics saw it as one of the standouts of the PS2's launch games. SSX Tricky came a year later and was so close to this one that many people saw it as an update. If you only know Tricky, this is where it all began.

Tekken Tag Tournament started in arcades on the same board as Tekken 3. The PS2 version came out in Japan only weeks after the console, and it was a launch title in North America and Europe. It runs on a new engine close to the one in Tekken 4, with much better graphics than the arcade game and new music in place of the MIDI tracks.

You pick two fighters and swap between them, but you lose the round as soon as one of them runs out of health. That makes tagging out a real decision. Nearly the whole Tekken cast is here, and Unknown waits at the end as the final boss. Many players still name it among their favourite PS2 games. An HD version came to the PS3 in Tekken Hybrid in 2011.

TimeSplitters was the first game from Free Radical, a studio made up of people who had worked on GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. It was a PS2 exclusive at launch, and the only PS2 launch title developed in Europe. You can feel the GoldenEye roots in every match.

The Arcade mode is where it shines. Up to four players and ten bots fight alone or in teams across six modes, and you can choose the weapons and maps for each mode. There is a level editor too, where you build maps out of ready-made tiles and set the lighting yourself. Players still recommend the whole series. It ran to three games between 2000 and 2005, and a fourth was cancelled when Free Radical closed in 2023.