15 Best PS4 Launch Games

Super Motherload came out on November 15, 2013, the same day as the console. It is the sequel to Motherload, an Adobe Flash game XGen Studios made in 2004. You work for a corporation that wants minerals and gems from Mars, so you drill down into the planet and sell what you bring back up.

Metacritic rates it at 65/100, so the critics were not won over. Even so, it got a PlayStation Blog Editors' choice award in 2013, and one review admitted the premise was "one that could prove to be addictive." Players who bought it early agree with that last part.

Sound Shapes is a side-scrolling platform game with a musical focus, designed by Jessica Mak and Shaw-Han Liem. It first came out in 2012, and the PS4 port arrived in 2013. Mak and Liem wanted to give beginners a sense of joyful creation without any music theory. They prototyped for about a year before settling on the coin-collecting musical mechanics: grab a coin and it adds a note to the song playing under the level.

Deadmau5 contributed songs, and each album was made by a musician and a visual artist together. You can also build your own levels and share them. Players still recommend it on the PS4, and it is one of the gentlest games on this list. Nothing here wants to hurt your feelings.

TT Games had already made several Batman games for DC, so a Marvel one was the obvious next step. The story sends Captain America, Iron Man and a big cast of heroes after Loki, who ends up controlling Galactus. By the end, the heroes and villains form an uneasy alliance to stop him.

It holds an average score of 83/100 on Metacritic, and reviewers liked its humor and its open-world gameplay. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad has called it the best-selling LEGO video game of all time. Players recommend it as easy fun, the game you put on when you want to smash things for an hour without thinking.

The Playroom is a box of small games, and new ones kept arriving as DLC after launch. The Toy Maker DLC came out on 26 November 2013 in North America, and Europe had it on its own launch day. My Alien Buddy followed on 24 December 2013. The Ninja Bots DLC arrived on 13 March 2014 and supports up to four players.

Nobody bought a PS4 for The Playroom. Players mostly bring it up when they talk about the camera, and it was the main thing to do with one. It is still the strangest game on the list, and it belongs here as a reminder of how much Sony wanted people to wave at their televisions.

Blacklight: Retribution started on PC in 2012. A PS4 version was released as a launch title in North America on November 15, 2013, followed by Europe and Australia on December 4. It is the sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down, and it is a cyberpunk arena shooter with the usual game modes plus a lot of room to customise your weapons and your soldier.

Critics praised its graphics, mechanics, item balance and deep customization, and the main complaint was a lack of innovation. The game proved popular, achieving one million players within a month of its release. Players on the PS4 put it in the same group as Warframe, as one of the free shooters that made a new console with few games feel full.

DC Universe Online first came out in January 2011 for Windows and PlayStation 3, and the PS4 version followed in November 2013. It is an online game where you make your own hero or villain, using pre-built templates inspired by key DC characters if you want a head start. Your first job is to fight your way out of a Brainiac spaceship.

A future version of Lex Luthor provides voice-over narration, and the opening cut scene shows him impaling Superman with a kryptonite-tipped spear. That is quite a welcome. Players who stuck with it remember it fondly, especially if they already liked the characters.

NBA 2K14 is the fifteenth game in the series. It came out on October 1, 2013 for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and the PS4 version arrived on the console's launch date. GamesRadar praised the amazingly realistic player models, the My Career mode and the improved presentation. Shortly after release it was the best-selling sports game on the new consoles.

It also had a nice trick for new owners: while the game was still downloading, you could already play games between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs. Early PS4 owners put it on their launch-day shopping lists right next to the shooters. If you were not into shooting things, it was the obvious first purchase.

Black Flag came out on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U in October 2013, and a month later on the PS4. For the first time in the series, naval exploration is a major part of the game. Edward captains the Jackdaw, a brig he takes from a Spanish fleet early on. The main cities are Havana, Kingston and Nassau.

Critics praised the open world, the naval combat and the pirate theme, though the modern-day story got a more mixed response. It won Best Action Adventure Game at the Spike VGX 2013 awards and sold over 11 million copies by 2014. Early PS4 owners listed it among their launch buys, and a remake, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, came out on July 9, 2026.

Ghosts is the tenth major Call of Duty and the sixth one by Infinity Ward. It came out on six platforms in November 2013, the PS4 included. It added Squads, a new mode, playable female soldiers and the Extinction mode, which unlocks after the first level of the campaign.

Critics gave it mixed reviews. They praised the multiplayer and the Extinction mode, and criticised the campaign for rehashing familiar ideas. Retrospective reviews have been less kind, and it tends to sit low when people rank the series. On launch day it was still one of the games everyone bought with the console.

Flower was designed by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark and came out on the PlayStation Network in February 2009. Bluepoint Games ported it to the PS4 and PS Vita, and those versions came out in November 2013. You fly a trail of petals, and each flower you pass through adds a chime that harmonizes with the music. It is impossible for the player to lose a level or any progress.

The music, by Vincent Diamante, changes with what you do and grows as the game goes on. Flower won the Casual Game of the Year award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Players name it in the same breath as Journey, and they recommend both for the same reason: you can just relax.

Killzone Shadow Fall was released on 15 November 2013 as a launch title for the PS4 in North America and 29 November 2013 in Europe. It was Guerrilla Games' chance to refresh the series, and it introduced the studio's Decima engine. Tyler Bates and the electronica artist Lorn wrote the music, which swaps orchestral bombast for ambient soundscapes and beat-driven electronica.

Destructoid gave it 9/10, while others knocked its lack of innovation. As of January 2014, it had sold over 2.1 million copies, making it the first PS4 game to pass a million. It was the showpiece shooter of launch day, and players still bring it up when they list the games they bought with the console. Its online servers were shut down on 12 August 2022, so the campaign is what is left.

Knack was the first PS4 game shown to the public, and Mark Cerny's team made it as the PS4's answer to Crash Bandicoot. Knack is built from Relics around a big one, and he grows as more join him. He can be the size of a human child or the size of small skyscrapers. It came out in North America, Europe and Australia in November 2013.

Critics praised the idea and criticised the gameplay, the difficulty and the story, so the reviews were mixed. Then something odd happened: Knack became a running joke among players, and the joke turned into real affection. A sequel, Knack II, came out in September 2017. Plenty of people who laughed at it went back and found a fun game.

Warframe is a free-to-play game from Digital Extremes, a Canadian studio. It grew out of the original plan for Dark Sector, and the team even kept that plan's name for the hero's people, the Tenno. You wake up from cryo-sleep into a solar system at war and fight in a suit of Warframe armor with its own powers. Growth was slow at first, with moderate reviews and low player counts, but it has grown hugely since.

Players call it a fair free game, one where you can get most of the content without spending money. The only thing you must pay for is some cosmetics. It was there on PS4 launch day, and plenty of people who downloaded it that week never stopped.

Resogun was made by Housemarque, an independent studio from Finland known for shoot 'em ups, and published by Sony. It is a shoot 'em up where enemies come at you from both directions. Your other job is to free humans from their chambers by killing the "keepers" and carry them to safety. Difficulties run from Rookie to Hero.

Critics loved the graphics, the speed and the soundtrack, and the complaints were about the short length and the lack of tutorials. It was nominated for Action Game of the Year at the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and ports for the PS3 and Vita came the following year. Players put it high in their own lists of the best PS4 games, which is rare for a launch download.

Battlefield 4 is the thirteenth Battlefield, made by DICE, and it is set six years after Battlefield 3 in the fictional "War of 2020". It came out in October and November 2013, and the PS4 version was one of the biggest games of launch day. The headline feature was Levolution, and it added Commander Mode and naval warfare too.

Critics liked the multiplayer, the gameplay and the graphics. The single-player campaign got criticised, and so did the numerous bugs and glitches in the multiplayer. None of that stopped people. Players who got it with the console sank huge amounts of time into it, and players name it more than any other PS4 launch game.