I tend to go through a period of rather intense deep discount-fuelled gaming every summer (thanks, Steam!), and 2026 is no different in that regard. In fact, I’ve been gaming even more than I usually do around this time of year, as I recently bought a PS5 Pro and allowed myself a month of PS Plus Extra to catch up on a few games I couldn’t really see myself wanting to play more than once.
And so, since gaming is where my headspace currently is, I figured I’d devote this next blog post to the best games I’ve played thus far this summer. You can see the rest of the games I’ve played this year (including the duds) on my Media Logs page.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (2021)
I’ve been a Ratchet & Clank fan ever since the first game came out for the PS2 back in 2002. I didn’t think anything was ever going to top the 2016 remake, but Insomniac Games was like “hold my gelatonium” and proved me wrong with this one.
As is par for the course with R&C, the cutscenes and voice acting in Rift Apart wouldn’t be out of place in a big budget Pixar film, and the combat is incredibly addictive with a wide variety of bizarre weapons to acquire and master. The story itself is a fun, original take on a tired old gaming trope (navigating through alternate dimensions), and it introduces some new highly memorable characters that I hope we’ll see again in future R&C titles.
I initially purchased Rift Apart on Steam at a heavy discount, and then downloaded it for the rest of the month through PS Plus Extra when I bought my PS5 Pro. I’m so glad I finished the game on my PS5 Pro and not my ailing gaming laptop, because the Performance Pro mode was absolutely stunning and out-classed my laptop big time.
I highly recommend Rift Apart if you enjoy cartoony action platformers, even if you haven’t played any of the earlier games in the series.
Gris (2018)
I downloaded this game on a whim, not really expecting much from it beyond a quick, easy, relaxing game to knock out during my month of PS Plus Extra access. It completely took me by surprise.
Gris is – to quote the product page on Steam – a story about “a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life.” Gameplay-wise, it’s a 2D puzzle platformer with a gorgeous art style based on watercolour paintings. It’s a beautiful example of what a small team of game developers can achieve with simple gameplay mechanics, a moving story, stunning design sensibilities, and a stellar soundtrack.
If you haven’t played this yet, play it. I do recommend waiting for a sale, though, as the game is very easy and only takes about three hours to complete.
Bramble: The Mountain King (2023)
Much like Gris, this indie title took me by complete surprise.
Based on the product description and trailers, I downloaded Bramble thinking it would be a quick, easy game with some creepy Nordic folklore elements to keep me on my toes. It is, instead, a challenging, grisly, terrifying puzzle-based horror game with a final boss that puts some Soulsborne bosses to shame. I won’t spoil anything, but there is a sequence late in the game that I found genuinely difficult to play, it was that scary. The Brothers Grimm ain’t got nothing on Dimfrost Studio…
Check this one out if you want to give yourself a good scare and don’t mind dying a lot. The game can be knocked out in a weekend, and only takes about six hours to complete. Also, if you’re the sort of person who appreciates good video game music, you’ll love everything about Bramble’s soundtrack.
Silent Hill 2 (2024)
I never played the original Silent Hill 2 on PS2, in large part because the first instalment of the series gave me night terrors (I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to play Silent Hill at the tender age of twelve, but hey, it was the ’90s and my Boomer parents paid little heed to the content of the games I played). Being able to experience this remake for the first time on a PS5 Pro and an OLED monitor was nothing short of spectacular. It’s the scariest horror game I’ve ever finished, by far.1
The dread I felt while playing Silent Hill 2 is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. It is utterly relentless. Those prison and labyrinth sequences almost made me uninstall the game and nope out of the room. Even in the comparatively less terrifying outdoor areas of Silent Hill, the fear that something horrific would spring out at me from the fog was always there. I had goosebumps during the entire twenty hours it took me to finish the game (and I have them now, even just thinking about it).
Story-wise, I found the game surprisingly coherent and moving – I say “surprisingly” here because my only experience with Silent Hill lore comes from the first game, which was pretty vague. I got the “bad” ending, and it was such a gut punch after everything I’d learned about those characters…
Highly recommend this remake if you can tolerate near-constant fear and anxiety while playing a video game. You’ll never look at red squares the same way ever again…
That’s all for now, but summer isn’t over yet! I picked up the following deeply discounted games for PC/PS5, and I hope to get through at least some of them before my annual obsessive desire to spend all my free time playing video games wanes again:
- No Man’s Sky
- Hades
- The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
- Carrion
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Resident Evil (PS4 remaster)
- Alan Wake
- Alan Wake 2
I’ll probably hold off on the horror games for a while though; after Bramble: The Mountain King and Silent Hill 2, I need to give my poor, overstimulated nervous system a break. 🙂
Footnotes
-
The scariest game I’ve ever played (and have not finished) remains Alien: Isolation. ↩