Skip to main content

Sony has over 25 first-party PlayStation 5 games in development

Sony has more than 25 first-party PlayStation 5 games in development, and nearly half of them are new intellectual property, according to a recent report from Wired. “There’s an incredible amount of variety originating from different regions. Big, small, different genres,” Hermen Hulst, PlayStation head of Worldwide Studios, told Wired in reference to the PS5 games currently in development.

This is in line with what Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan said last month when confirming the PS5 will have more exclusives than ever before.

“We have been quietly but steadily investing in high-quality games for PlayStation, and we will make sure that the PS5 generation will have more dedicated software than ever before,” Ryan told Nikkei (as translated by VGC).

The Wired post also delves into the development of Horizon Forbidden West, a game that is reportedly due out in 2021. Forbidden West is the forthcoming sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, which first launched in 2017 from Guerrilla Games.

Angie Smets, the studio director at Guerrilla, spoke about the PS5 DualSense features specific to Forbidden West.

“If you want to take a stealth approach to a combat situation and you dive into long grass,” Smets says, “you can feel those long grass leaves,” in reference to the DualSense’s haptic feedback support. Forbidden West will still launch for PS4, but if players want to experience haptic feedback, they’ll need to play on PS5.

Sony hasn’t provided an official update on the development of Forbidden West in some time, so if it is launching this year as Wired claims, we’ll likely get some sort of blowout showcase soon, perhaps in the form of a State of Play. Interestingly, the Wired post did not make mention of the upcoming God of War sequel, which was originally slated for a 2021 launch window.

Regardless of these two titles, Sony clearly has major plans for the future of the PS5, so there will be lots to look forward to.

Editors' Recommendations

Joseph Yaden
Joseph Yaden is a freelance journalist who covers loves Nintendo, shooters, and horror games. He mostly covers game guides…
PlayStation reveals new features and UI for its PS5 Access Controller
Sony's Project Leonardo controller sits on a table.

Sony revealed new details about its PlayStation 5 accessibility controller, which has been renamed from Project Leonardo to the Access Controller. A new blog post details what comes with the controller and offers a glimpse at the UI interface that players will use to customize it on the PS5.

Sony surprise revealed its "Project Leonardo" at CES earlier this year (Digital Trends named it the best gaming tech of the show). The circular pad features a unique design meant to make it easier for people with disabilities to customize controls to their needs. While it still doesn't have a price or release date, Sony has opened a new website for its newly renamed Access Controller and shared new details on it.

Read more
I miss the golden age of oddball, first-party PlayStation exclusives
gamescom 2012 ps vita announcements playstation tearaway media molecule

While PlayStation continues to thrive thanks to big-budget games like God of War Ragnarok, two recent events show how much Sony's video game brand is changing. The first came when the Sony-owned studio Media Molecule would end support for Dreams, a PS4-exclusive experience creation tool allowing players to build and share games with one another, later this year.

Shortly after that news, PixelOpus -- another Sony-owned studio -- announced it would be shutting down on June 2 after publishing just two titles: Entrwined in 2014 and Concrete Genie in 2019. In its tweet, PixelOpus stated "Dear friends, our PixelOpus adventure has come to an end. As we look to new futures, we wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to the millions of passionate players who have supported us, and our mission to make beautiful, imaginative games with heart. We are so grateful!"

Read more
3 big things I need to see from the next PlayStation Showcase
Peter and Miles from Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

It’s that time of the year again when industry insiders are teasing that a big PlayStation Showcase will happen around June. A third-party focused State of Play happened in 2022, but now Video Games Chronicle’s Andy Robinson and Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb are both suggesting that a more first-party oriented "Showcase" could be on the way sometime during the next month, potentially during the week of May 25.
PlayStation has had a rough start to 2023, with console exclusive Forspoken garnering mixed reviews, the PlayStation VR2 impressing critics while underperforming in sales, and The Last of Us Part 1’s PC port being broken at launch. With only Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 confirmed to be on the horizon for 2023, Sony has a lot to prove during its next showcase. There are three specific things I need to see from Sony if that PlayStation Showcase does come to fruition.
Give PSVR2 purpose
The PlayStation VR2 is an impressive piece of virtual reality technology, but it lacks killer apps outside of Horizon: Call of the Mountain. New game releases for the headset have been slow since its February 2022 launch, which is likely why the $550 headset has underperformed. Sony has opted to mainly relegate PSVR2 to State of Plays or PlayStation Blog posts, but it needs to revitalize excitement for the platform by giving some of its games a spotlight in a big PlayStation Showcase.

Hopefully, there’s more on the way in terms of new AAA VR exclusives from first-party studios, as well as much-demanded ports like Half-Life: Alyx. Already announced PSVR2 games like Journey to Foundation and Synapse could also use release dates. A PlayStation Showcase is the perfect time for Sony to put out a clear road map for PSVR2’s future game library, just as the September 2021 PlayStation did for PS5. Give me a reason to strap on that headset yet again.
Flesh out the system’s 2023 exclusives lineup
PS5 needs a strong lineup for this fall as well. With the exception of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, things look pretty barren for PS5 this year after the launch of Final Fantasy XVI. Several previously announced PS5 games still lack concrete release dates and could arrive in the second half of this year. It’d be nice to get a clearer picture of Sony’s PS5 game lineup for the rest of the year; hopefully, it includes titles like Stellar Blade, the Silent Hill 2 remake, Lost Soul Aside, Death Stranding 2, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Read more