The Best PlayStation Game Every Year 1994 - 2024

Very few years in gaming history have been defined by as few as two titles. In the case of 2013, when they’re both games that are in the conversation for having some of the biggest legacies of all time, it’s inevitable. But of course, Grand Theft Auto V wasn’t an exclusive… whereas The Last of Us arguably put PlayStation back on track.

One of the many things that made The Last of Us great was that it held no quarter. There was no flair for the sake of entertainment, nor compromise in the tale to make sure players walked away feeling triumphant. The horror of the post-apocalypse was at the helm, with the worst of it laid bare as Joel and Ellie made their long journey to the story’s bitter end. 

But it wasn’t brutality for brutality’s sake, either physically or emotionally. There was a sense of purpose behind every development that deepened the world and affected the characters and their relationship, making it so easy to be immersed. Unlike most games up to this point, there was a less clear delineation between gameplay and story. The Last of Us moved seamlessly from one to the other and often overlapped. 

Where the narrative is clearly the strong point of TLOU, the gameplay was still solid, making nods to survival horror with its limited combat solutions and on-the-fly item crafting. It forced players to assess situations, apply stealth and often consider escape as a victory rather than standing atop a pile of bodies. It didn’t add any gameplay innovations, so much as provide players with a specific set of tools that overall made them understand the terror of the cordyceps-infected world.

The Last Of Us didn’t need to add crazy new mechanics, it simply changed the industry by treating the moment-to-moment as the overall vision, becoming perhaps the most important PlayStation first-party title of all time.