20 Best PS3 Action Games

In Vanquish you play Sam Gideon, a DARPA soldier in a prototype battlesuit called the Augmented Reaction Suit, which has jet boosters attached to his thighs. Shinji Mikami wanted to make a game like Casshern, a 1970s anime series, but with guns, since he had already made a brawler with God Hand. The sliding boost is how he kept Casshern's "feeling of speed" in a shooter.

It has a cover system, but bullets and missiles come at you from all directions, a lot like a bullet hell shooter, so hiding never lasts long. Players recommend it for action that barely stops for a breath. It is estimated to have sold over 1 million units worldwide, and it later came back on a single disc with Bayonetta, a fellow PlatinumGames title.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is set 150 years in the future, in a post-apocalyptic America where nature has reclaimed the world. You play Monkey, who is stuck working with a young woman called Trip, and her only defense is an EMP blast. Most of the time you are scaling and leaping across the ruins, with fights against old war machines in between. The team started it after halting work on a sequel to Heavenly Sword.

Andy Serkis and Lindsey Shaw provided the performance capture, and Ico inspired the dynamics between the two heroes. Critics praised the world design and Garland's script, but it was a commercial failure and a planned sequel was cancelled. Players keep pointing anyone who wants a sci-fi action game with a linear story to it.

Darksiders came out on January 5, 2010, in North America. You play War, one of the Horsemen, who arrives on present-day Earth in the middle of the Endwar between angels and demons. The Charred Council accuses him of starting the Apocalypse too early, so he is stripped of his powers and bound to the Watcher, a Council servant voiced by Mark Hamill who is allowed to execute him if he disobeys.

Getting those powers back takes you across wastelands and demon-infested dungeons, and the further you go, the more of your old arsenal returns. It is slower and more about exploring than most games on this list. Players nearly always recommend it together with Darksiders II, a parallel sequel that came out on August 14, 2012.

Binary Domain is a squad-based shooter set in Tokyo in the year 2080, where robots have started slipping into society undetected. You lead Dan Marshall and his squad through the derelict lower levels of the city. Along the way you make real-time moral decisions and build up trust with your teammates.

Critics praised the story and the Consequence System, though the voice recognition system drew complaints. It sold only 20,000 copies in North America by April 2012. Players who found it later recommend it to anyone who wants a linear game with plenty of shooting.

Asura's Wrath follows the demigod Asura as he takes revenge on the pantheon of other demigods who betrayed him. It is told like an episodic series, with opening and closing credits and a brief promo for the next episode, and the media called it an "interactive anime". The play keeps switching from beat 'em up fights to rail shooting, with button prompts laid over the cutscenes.

Producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya said it takes elements from Hinduism and Buddhism and blends them with science fiction. Critics loved the story and were split on how the gameplay and the anime style fit together. One review called it "an elixir for only the most obsessive fans of anime storytelling". For some people that is a warning, and for the rest of us it is the whole sales pitch.

Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to American McGee's Alice (2000), directed by American McGee himself. It takes place in 1875, a year after Alice's release from Rutledge Asylum. Alice, now 19 years old, lives at an orphanage in Victorian London, and every trip into her twisted Wonderland is a hunt for the truth about the fire that consumed her home and her family.

Her weapons are everyday things that turn deadly in Wonderland, and when her health is very low she can use Hysteria for a limited amount of time. Memories you find along the way fill in the backstory with voiceovers. Critics gave it mixed-to-positive reviews.

Bayonetta was the third project released by PlatinumGames, with Hideki Kamiya as the director. The team called itself "Team Little Angels", a play on "Team Little Devils", who made the first Devil May Cry, and Kamiya even played Devil May Cry 4 for reference. You are a witch fighting angels, and a rating system gives you a grade based on your performance.

It reached North America and Europe in January 2010 and sold over one million units worldwide by 2010. Critics praised the combat and the soundtrack, while the story and the quick time events drew some criticism. Players who love fast combat keep recommending it alongside Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which makes sense, since the same studio made both.

God of War: Ascension came out in March 2013 as a prequel, second in the series' timeline. Kratos has broken his blood oath to Ares and is imprisoned, and the game is about him getting free. The new World Weapon system lets him pick up other weapons, and he can learn up to four magical disciplines, from the Fires of Ares to the Soul of Hades.

It was also the first God of War with multiplayer, online only, where up to eight players can take part after siding with a god. Critics found the story less compelling than in the earlier games but praised the fighting as true to the series. Players who recommend it usually tell you to play the whole Greek saga, and on PS3 you can.

Lollipop Chainsaw is a collaboration between Suda51 and filmmaker James Gunn, and it plays about how you would guess. You are Juliet Starling, a chainsaw wielding cheerleader cleaning up a zombie outbreak. Kill three or more zombies at once and you get Sparkle Hunting, which pays out platinum medals for costumes, music and artwork.

The bosses are the Dark Purveyors, zombie stereotypes of different kinds of rock music, and Jimmy Urine from Mindless Self Indulgence composed the music for the boss segments. Japanese critics praised the combos, while Western critics felt the gameplay was repetitive. Players mostly side with Japan on this one, and one summed it up in a single line: "The world needs more Lollipop Chainsaw."

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune follows Nathan Drake, the supposed descendant of Sir Francis Drake, as he hunts for the treasure of El Dorado with journalist Elena Fisher and mentor Victor Sullivan. Naughty Dog drew on pulp magazines and movie serials for the look. Fights were compared to Gears of War, with Drake taking cover behind walls and using blind fire or aimed fire.

Critics praised the characters, voice acting and production values, and complained about the vehicle sections and the difficulty. It sold one million copies after ten weeks of release. Players almost always recommend the whole trilogy together, so think of this as part one of a very good set.

Spec Ops: The Line is a third-person shooter in which Captain Martin Walker and two soldiers go into Dubai to recover whoever remains of the 33rd Battalion. Yager took the setting and story framework from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, so you can guess it does not stay a simple rescue job. Nolan North voices Walker.

Critics praised the narrative and its themes and were less kind about the multiplayer. It was a commercial failure that ended the Spec Ops series, then picked up a cult following, and it is still cited as an example of artistic expression in video games. It was delisted from sales in January 2024 because of music licensing, so a disc is one of the few ways left to play it.

Dante's Inferno is loosely based on Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, with one big change: Dante is a Templar knight from the Crusades. Guided by the spirit of the poet Virgil, he fights through the nine Circles of Hell to rescue his wife Beatrice from Lucifer. You choose whether to punish or absolve the souls of defeated enemies, and it runs at 60 frames per second.

Critics liked the art direction and the depiction of Hell, though the gameplay got mixed reviews and the God of War comparisons were impossible to miss. Players make the same comparison, only kinder: they recommend it as the closest thing to God of War on the console. Sequels based on Purgatorio and Paradiso were planned and then cancelled, so Dante never got out.

Tomb Raider is a reboot that tells the origin story of Lara Croft, and it came out on PS3 on 5 March 2013 with Camilla Luddington as the new Lara. Her first expedition takes her to Yamatai, a lost island in the Dragon's Triangle off the coast of Japan. The Solarii Brotherhood has built a rigid society there based on the worship of Himiko, and getting off the island means fighting through them.

It is the best-selling Tomb Raider title to date, with over 14.5 million units sold worldwide by October 2021. Critics praised the graphics and Luddington's performance, and the multiplayer mode was the one part they criticized. Players often send Uncharted fans here next, since the two play a lot alike.

Max Payne 3 moves the series to São Paulo, and Rockstar's developers did field research around the city throughout development. Things go wrong fast. When Rodrigo is told to pay $3 million to get Fabiana back, Max handles the exchange at a local football stadium, and you can guess how that goes. The trail ends in the Nova Esperança favela.

This is the first Max Payne with a cover system, and after a shoot-dodge dive you can keep shooting at any angle while lying on the ground. Cutscenes run straight into the gameplay with no loading screens between them. Unlike the earlier games, Max can only hold three weapons at a time, so pick your favourite rifle carefully.

In Batman: Arkham Asylum the Joker seizes control of the asylum and frees its inmates, and Batman is locked in with all of them. Veteran Batman writer Paul Dini wrote the story, and three voice actors from the animated series came back for their roles. Rocksteady built it with a 40-person team that grew to 60 people over about 21 months.

It came out in August 2009, and many reviewers called it the "greatest comic book game of all time". It held the Guinness World Record for "Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever". The stealth and the combat both hold up today. Players still name it among the best action games on the console, and its sequel, Arkham City, went on to open the city up.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance started at Kojima Productions in 2009 as Metal Gear Solid: Rising, and it nearly died there. The team could not make a game built on swordplay work, so Kojima halted development until a solution could be found. It resurfaced in late 2011 with PlatinumGames as the new developer, and the tagline changed from "Tactical Espionage Action" to "Lightning Bolt Action".

You play Raiden, now a cyborg ninja with a High Frequency katana, and the whole game is built on a sophisticated cutting system. It came out in February 2013, and critics praised the soundtrack and the boss fights, with some criticism for the camera and the short campaign. It sold more than 2 million copies. Players tend to recommend it in the same breath as Bayonetta and Vanquish.

Heavenly Sword began development in 2002 at Ninja Theory. You play Nariko, voiced by Anna Torv, who carries a sword that costs the life of whoever uses it. Kai's movements were based on cats and on San from Princess Mononoke. Nitin Sawhney composed the music. Sony and Ninja Theory also made five making-of videos about the production, which you can unlock while playing.

It sold over a million copies, and critics praised the graphics and the combat system while criticizing the short length and the lack of online play. Players often compare it to God of War, and it ranks here above every other game made in that mold except Kratos's own.

God of War III came out on March 16, 2010, the first mainline title made without series creator David Jaffe. Kratos climbs Mount Olympus to take revenge on the gods who betrayed him, armed with his double-chained blades and new weapons and magic. On the way he kills Hades, then catches Hermes, whose death releases a plague upon Greece.

Sony promised battles on a scale four times larger than God of War II. It sold over 5 million copies worldwide by June 2012, which made it the ninth best-selling PlayStation 3 game of all time. Critics praised the graphics and scope, though the plot got a mixed response. Players name it again and again when someone asks what action game to play on PS3.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the final canonical Metal Gear game with Solid Snake as the main character. Snake is told he has only a year to live, and soldiers everywhere now run on nanomachines controlled by the Sons of the Patriots system. The camera moved from overhead to over the shoulder for aiming, and an arms dealer called Drebin sells you weapons for Drebin Points.

Its release caused a boost in sales of the PlayStation 3. By 2014 it had sold six million copies worldwide, and it won Game of the Year awards from several major gaming publications. The cutscenes are long, and the story makes a lot more sense if you know the earlier games. Players still recommend it to anyone who owns a PS3.

The Last of Us is a third-person action-adventure game where you face infected creatures and hostile human enemies with a mix of stealth and combat. Development began in 2009, after Naughty Dog finished Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and the studio split into two teams for the first time. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson played Joel and Ellie through voice and motion capture, and their relationship became the focus of development. Gustavo Santaolalla composed the score.

It came out on PS3 in 2013 to critical acclaim and sold over 1.3 million copies in its first week. By April 2018 it had reached 17 million. Left Behind added a single-player campaign about Ellie and her best friend Riley. Players recommend it more than any other PS3 action game.