It may be hard to remember now, but once upon a time, PlayStation was an underdog. Sony’s first gaming system, which turns 30 years old this week, came about only after Nintendo backed out of a deal to produce a CD-ROM-driven version of the Super Nintendo with the Japanese electronics firm; Sony president Norio Ohga’s response was to begin developing an SNES competitor. Released in Japan on December 3, 1994, the PlayStation would redefine what a home entertainment console could be, in the process establishing Sony as the preeminent name in the space.
It’s not just the console, though. Sony’s sustained superiority comes from the fact it produces and releases great games. From Metal Gear Solid to The Last of Us, each iteration of the PlayStation has brought must-play titles that either debut on the console first or are wholly exclusive to it, capitalizing on the system’s powerhouse graphics to tell one memorable story after another.
To mark the anniversary, GQ has rounded up the 30 best games in 30 years of PlayStation history. The caveat here is that each of these games needed to have either been released on the system first or be synonymous with the PlayStation experience. And instead of ranking them, we’re listing the best of the best, from the PS1 all the way to the PS5, highlighting the elite of the elite. While a majority of this list are games produced by Sony and its various first-party studios, there are some memorable standouts and surprises throughout that diehards will remember from when they first dropped the disk in, powered it up, and heard those opening chimes. So press Start and join us on a whopping three-decade journey through Sony’s best.
Final Fantasy VII (released January 31, 1997)
Perhaps the definitive installment of the Final Fantasy franchise (try saying that three times fast), Final Fantasy VII almost didn’t release on the PlayStation. The story goes that developer Square had an internal bakeoff between the cartridge-based format of the Nintendo 64 and the CD-ROM of the PlayStation before selecting the latter for its storage capacity and graphical fidelity. As such, the PlayStation became the home for the iconic tale of Cloud Strife, Midgar, Tifa, Aerith, and the rest of Square’s cast of memorable characters. The first Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) to make a major splash Stateside, this prescient sci-fi tale still resonates today with its heartbreaking twists and turns.
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