Assassin's Creed: Valhalla Review

he Assassin’s Creed franchise has taken gamers all over the world, and now fans of this historical fiction series may venture forth into the gritty medieval landscapes of England and Norway in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. This promises to be one of the most expansive and unique games in a long line of genre-defining titles with an enormous open world map and a wealth of engaging stories and activities to participate in. Valhalla builds on many of the mechanics players first saw in Assassins’s Creed: Origins and Odyssey, containing more RPG elements, a variety of combat styles, and plenty of upgrades. 

I played the game on PC for several days, but it’s also available on all other major platforms including the upcoming Xbox Series X, Xbox One, upcoming PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4. 

Story: A lot going on, and none of it to be spoiled

There’s a lot to say here, but not much that can be said without spoilers. Given how engaging I found the plot, it would be a shame to spoil it in any way. Suffice it to say that, though it begins as a typical revenge story, it soon becomes more complex and interesting. You play as Eivor, a male or female warrior who raids England during the reign of Alfred the Great. 

Aside from the basis in history, there are fascinating mythological elements to the storyline, and obviously, much attention was paid to crafting an authentic recreation of the cultures being represented here. The game does a good job of focusing on telling a story about Vikings, while also working the series namesake “Assassins” into the mix in a plausible manner. 

Perhaps more interesting than the main plot are the side quests sprinkled liberally about the world. These are typically informal, chance encounters and, though they do grant experience towards skill points, their primary point is to tell an intriguing story, which they accomplish with aplomb. The characters are almost invariably well-acted, and while short, these quests are remarkably well written and worth seeking out.

The prologue map alone in Norway covers 15 square kilometers, and has between 10 and 15 hours worth of gameplay. It honestly is worth the cost of admission in its own right. I could easily have spent 20 hours there just climbing mountains. However, the core of the game is set in England, and the map is absolutely gigantic. 

In total, the game’s various open world areas cover a staggering 140 square kilometers, nearly ten times the size of the prologue area. By this rough estimate, there should be at least 120 hours worth of content in this game, including a roughly 60-hour main campaign. Missions, mysteries, and treasure in abundance ensure that the wilderness never grows stale.

Gameplay: Easy to pick up, challenging to master

Valhalla’s gameplay will be familiar to fans of the Assassin's Creed franchise, particularly the more recent entries in the series. As usual, there are tweaks and innovations, but it was easy enough for me to pick up, with my most recent experience being with AC Unity. Players who’ve played Origins and Odyssey will find much to be familiar. The fluid movement and iconic parkour makes navigating around the expansive open world fun and engaging, though novices may accidentally fling themselves off a cliff or two by accident as they learn the ropes.

Fall damage is back, but don’t worry though, most falls won’t kill you, and you can just scarf a few berries and be right as rain. It’s worth the risk, as climbing mountains is in itself an activity that offers hours of freeform fun. As is traditional for Assassin's Creed games, you can safely leap from any high place so long as there is a pile of hay, leaves, or a shallow pond to break your fall.

Ubisoft has truly mastered the mechanics of boats, and sailing is just pure joy with your loyal crew singing their way down the fjords as the wind whistles in the rigging, your ship riding the realistic swells. 

There are traditional observation points to unlock, but there are also plenty of interesting peaks, spires, and mountain tops with unique views to discover. Most aren’t marked, so there’s a sense of discovery in seeking them out, and thanks to a robust photo mode, it’s fun to document your hiking and climbing adventures. 

Traveling long distances around the map can be done via unlockable fast travel locations, but the vast, beautiful world crafted for Valhalla encouraged me to explore it on foot, even for paths I had trodden more than once. This is aided by your ability to summon a horse or a longboat to your position, either of which is an exciting way to travel. 

Ubisoft has truly mastered the mechanics of boats, and sailing is just pure joy with your loyal crew singing their way down the fjords as the wind whistles in the rigging, your ship riding the realistic swells. Alternatively, your bard may accompany your seafaring with diverting tales. If there’s one downside is that unlike Odyssey, there’s no ship-to-ship naval combat, but perhaps that makes sense because the Vikings were more land raiders despite their extensive use of longboats to travel. 

Combat is fast, brutal, and varied with deep customization and different potential approaches. There are many ways to approach each situation, and none of them are wrong. You can sneak in and pick the enemy off one by one, dumping their carcasses in bushes so as not to tip off their friends, or you can nail them from a distance with arrows. Alternatively, you can stride in, axes twirling, and cut a bloody swath through your foes. 

Skill points are given to you as you level up and can be used to upgrade your character and hone their skill in ranged, stealth, or melee fields. Abilities can also be discovered by reading books hidden throughout the world. This is the main way you can specialize your character build. If you want a more traditional assassin experience, put all your points into stealth or ranged, but if you want to live your life as a brutal Viking warlord, go all-in on melee. My favorite move is one in which you hurl throwing axes all around you in slow motion.

A particularly thrilling experience in Valhalla is summoning your berserker crew to come and fight at your side.

A particularly thrilling experience in Valhalla is summoning your berserker crew to come and fight at your side. Even better are raids, where you leap from your ship among a horde of screaming Vikings to slay your enemies and loot their towns. 

Raiding becomes a vital component of the game, as raids are the only way to build your settlement. It’s not a particularly complex base building mechanic, as it only involves raiding the requisite supplies and returning them to your settlement, whereupon a new building magically appears. It’s fun to watch your settlement grow, and you gradually unlock a variety of different functions and quests.

Difficulty and Content Settings: Lots to customize

Valhalla gives you plenty of ways to customize your experience. You can adjust the difficulty of stealth, combat, and exploration separately, so you can choose which gameplay elements are difficult and which you’d rather not get in the way. Additionally, mature elements in the game such as blood and gore can be toggled on and off, which will be a relief to parents and a boon to anyone who doesn’t fancy seeing severed heads flying through the air.

Minigames: Enjoyable diversions

There’s more to do than fighting and exploring; in Valhalla there are a number of intriguing minigames to divert you from quests. I particularly enjoyed Flyting, which is a battle of words These are timed, competitive poetry contests where you must quickly select the most appropriate verse from a list of options. It’s both amusing and character building. 

Orlog is an interesting dice game that I would honestly like to own in real life, and the drinking minigame is a highly enjoyable reflex-based challenge. A nice touch is that the results of imbibing huge amounts of mead persist for a period of time after the minigame is complete. After all, are you really a Viking warrior if you’re not completely drunk all the time? 

Customization: Lots of stuff to tweak

As in Odyssey, the game allows you to play as either male or female, and offers a range of cosmetic options, mainly by way of tattoos and hairstyles. New tattoo patterns are acquired through parkour challenges. What’s more interesting is the gameplay affecting clothing and weapons that alter your appearance—I particularly appreciated that upgrading those items affects their looks. You can choose from different ravens and horses, and change the appearance of your longship. Eventually, you will also be able to customize the appearance of your settlement.

 I was particularly struck by the amber rays of the setting sun that slanted through the rigging of my longboat as I returned from a mountain climbing excursion.

Graphics: Epic good looks 

Valhalla is an absolutely gorgeous game. Everything from the detailed character models to the vibrant open world is beautiful to look upon. Changing weather alters the mood of landscapes, and can create breathtaking moments. I was particularly struck by the amber rays of the setting sun that slanted through the rigging of my longboat as I returned from a mountain climbing excursion. 

Towns and cities are richly detailed, with people going about their daily business in this muddy and gritty medieval setting. The wilderness is also magnificent, with wild natural beauty and towering ruins in equal measure. Wildlife and farm animals are both present in this world, adding vibrancy to the countryside.

Setup Process and Performance: A rough start

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is typical of modern AAA titles in that it requires a big download and a considerable amount of storage space to house on your PC or console. With the day one update to consider, you’re looking at around 50GB. 

Now, keep in mind that these are my pre-launch experiences with the game not fully patched. I initially installed it on my Asus Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, which I reviewed recently and found to be capable of running modern titles at high or max settings. However, Valhalla appears to be a whole different kind of beast and played havoc on my machine. 

When I first jumped into the game after the intro cutscene, I was greeted with the most horrendous graphics glitching I’ve ever experienced. Thinking this was because I had foolishly maxed the settings I restarted after tweaking down graphics, but upon restart, the glitches were appearing in the menu itself. I exited the game and the glitches persisted for about 10 seconds after Valhalla had closed. The built-in benchmarking tool in the game refused to run entirely. In the end, I decided not to push my luck with the laptop.

On a gaming PC with a more powerful processor, more RAM, and an RTX 2070 GPU, I didn’t encounter any glitches. However, the game is extremely power-hungry, and I was only able to run it at max settings with 60fps at 1080p. Ubisoft titles are known for being poorly optimized at launch, so this game should perform better after a few patches. Still, it’s clearly designed for next-gen consoles and the latest PC hardware. If you are playing on PC, be sure to utilize the benchmarking tool to find the ideal settings for your system.

Of course, if you’re playing on console you don’t have to worry about performance issues since the game is better optimized. It’s currently available for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and will be available for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 at launch. You can also get it on Google Stadia.

Price: Typical AAA 

The base game will set you back the typical $60, while the gold edition bundles in the season pass and costs a full $100. That will include the planned expansions which will add Ireland and France to the map. Expensive though $100 is, it does promise a potentially huge amount of content. The game also has microtransactions, which is a bit of a bummer, though these weren’t integrated into the game at the time of writing.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla vs. Watch Dogs: Legion

It’s interesting that Ubisoft decided to launch two third-person action games set in England within a span of a few weeks. Where Valhalla is set in the Middle Ages, Watch Dogs: Legion is set in a near-future sci-fi dystopia, though in both games you are battling against tyrannical rulers in England. Choose Watch Dogs if you want sci-fi focused on hackers and non-violent solutions, and Valhalla if you love bloody medieval fighting and exploration.

It’s also worth mentioning the resemblance between Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla to The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. The comparison is inescapable due to the fact that both are based on Norse culture. While Valhalla is certainly a more historically grounded game as opposed to Skyrim's totally fictional fantasy realm, Valhalla will nonetheless be familiar and exciting for fans of Skyrim.

The 8 Best Exciting PC Games of 2022

The 9 Best Games for PS5 of 2022

 The best games for PS5 take full advantage of the console’s significant upgrades from its predecessor, with a better CPU and GPU, more RAM, SSD storage, and controller enhancements to push games to the next level. The very best PS5 games should provide a little something extra—exceptional graphics, amazing sound, or really cool feedback and integration with the new DualSense Controller. 

Our pick for the best PS5 game is Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, because although it has a few bugs, the world looks gorgeous and it held our interest from start to finish. We’ve also included picks in other categories, like the best FPS, the best RPG, the best platformer, and the best PS5 game for kids.

The Rundown

Best overall:

 Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed Valhalla at Amazon

Best Adventure:

 Spider-Man: Miles Morales at Amazon

Best FPS:

 Black Ops Cold War at Amazon

Best Stealth :

 IO Interactive Hitman 3 at Amazon

Best Open World:

 Watch Dogs: Legion at Amazon

Best Challenge:

 Namco Bandai Games Demon's Souls at Amazon

Best Platformer:

 Sackboy: A Big Adventure at Amazon

Best for Kids:

 Bugsnax at Best Buy

Best RPG:

 Cyberpunk 2077 at Amazon

Best overall: Assassin's Creed Valhalla (PS5)

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What We Like

• Huge open world to explore

• Gorgeous visuals

• Exciting historical theme

What We Don't Like

• Has bugs that need resolved

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla Review

Assassin’s Creed has had its share of ups and downs over the 12 main entries into the series, but the fact that Valhalla is the 12th main entry should send a signal that the series remains solid. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla definitely stands tall among the other entries as one of the best in the series, as well as one of the best games to play on your PS5. Valhalla looks amazing running in 4k at 60 FPS, with next-gen visual tricks that show off the console’s graphics. The sunlight beams down, making you feel as though you are really exploring medieval England. Whether it’s through attacking forts or riding through the detailed wilderness on a wolf, you will always have sights to see. 

The side quest system feels streamlined and the quests are actually enjoyable, rather than having you spend hours on a bunch of meaningless hunts or fetch quests that are repeated through each zone. The game does not disappoint when it comes to acting or storytelling either. You play as Eivor—a male or female Viking who wants to lead their clan out of their homeland in search of a better life and home. Throughout the game, players explore much of medieval England. You get to see a really cool interpretation of Asgard, and several other places. 

Eivor will become involved with the Assassins in an attempt to take down Templars, much like other games in the series. As with other Assassin’s Creed games, there is a modern part of the tale, as well, which continues from previous entries. With fun combat, thorough exploration, and a good story, this is a top notch game for PS5.

“Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla exceeds, as Assassin’s Creed games so often do, in creating the most painstakingly detailed virtual recreation of a place and period possible. It’s got exploration, intense combat, and enthralling stories by the bucket full, and it’s easy to get lost in its sheer scope and scale.” — Andy Zahn, Product Tester

Best Adventure: Spider-Man: Miles Morales

4.9

Amazon

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What We Like

• Fits well in universe

• Good controls and responsiveness

• A fun experience start to finish

What We Don't Like

• Smaller game than original Spider-Man game

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review

Even with that limited scope, Miles Morales is an even better and more exciting game than its predecessor. Miles’ tale is full of richly drawn characters, relationships, and tugs on emotional threads as he navigates being the new Spider-Man and wrestling with conflicts that are nearer and dearer than expected. It’s a beautiful game on the PS5 and benefits from the immersive DualSense controller and speedy loading times, but the PS4 version keeps the experience intact without the bonus frills. This is one of the best comic-based games to date.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an open-world superhero adventure that launched alongside the new PlayStation 5 console, but is also available on PlayStation 4. It carries over most of the framework from Insomniac Games’ 2018 Spider-Man quest, but has a shorter campaign and less side content around it, but with a lesser price tag to match.

"Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a stunner on the new PlayStation 5 hardware, putting the ample graphical power to use in delivering smooth performance at 4K resolution and dazzling lighting effects." — Andrew Hayward, Product Tester

Best FPS: Black Ops Cold War

Walmart

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What We Like

• Tight shooting

• Best in class multiplayer

• Lots of modes and things to do

What We Don't Like

• Not much innovation

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is another great entry in the COD series, and our pick for best FPS on PS5. Cold War provides players with three main ways to enjoy the game and plenty of fun to be had. The campaign mode focuses on the Cold War and has some interesting ways of exploring the way the series can go. There are the large scale battles and gunfights of course, but there are also more calm moments which provide a bit of balance, making you feel more engaged and like you’re playing through a real story. 

The Cold War story follows up on the previous Black Ops entry, and even includes some characters you will find familiar. Don’t worry if you didn’t play the last entry, as you do not need to have played to enjoy this game. With huge set piece moments and classic COD gunplay, there is plenty of action in the roughly five to eight hours of campaign gameplay. The Multiplayer mode is the classic draw for any COD game, and Cold War doesn’t let you down, but at the same time, a lot of it feels familiar. Most modes are 6v6, but there is also Combined Arms mode, which features 12v12, and Fireteam: Dirty Bomb, which is a fun mode that features 40 players on 10 teams. Finally, there’s Zombie mode—a mode which sees players facing round after round of zombie killing fun in a cooperative way. With lots to do, and executed in a clean way, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is a must have for any PS5 owner who loves the FPS genre.

Best Stealth : IO Interactive Hitman 3

4.4

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What We Like

• Sandbox-style assassinations

• Tons of replayability

• Cool locations and levels

• Several game modes

• Multiple disguises

What We Don't Like

• Stiff animations

• Slow-paced gameplay

• Short campaign

• Lacks multiplayer (as of launch)

Hitman 3 Review

Hitman 3 is a sandbox-style stealth game that’s available on PS5, as well as Microsoft Windows, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Stadia, and Nintendo Switch. This game is the conclusion to the World of Assassination Trilogy, and it has excellent replay value in spite of its short campaign, which is only around six hours long. In the game, you play as Agent 47, an assassin who previously worked for the International Contract Agency (ICA), but you have now gone rogue along with your handler (Diana Burnwood) and another assassin named Lucas Grey. 

Your goal is to destroy a shadow organization called Providence. You do this by traveling to different locations and completing missions. You’ll visit all sorts of cool places, like a skyscraper in Dubai, a mansion in Dartmoor, a club in Berlin, and other interesting places. The cut scenes tend to be a bit stiff and outdated, but the game still looks good overall.

You play through six main missions, which are presented to you in a menu. You get incentives for replaying each mission, making the game more fun to replay. There are also different game modes to make the game more exciting, but there’s no multiplayer mode (as of launch). A unique game with fun levels, costumes, and humor, Hitman 3 is a must-play on PS5.

"The levels are exciting and gameplay keeps you locked in. You will be constantly diverted by exploration, looking for tools, and distractions." — Erika Rawes, Product Tester

Best Open World: Watch Dogs: Legion

3.2

Amazon

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What We Like

• Permadeath feature available for extra challenge

• Effective use of humor

• Good attention to detail

• Visually interesting

What We Don't Like

• Missions felt redundant

• Online play not available on release 

Watch Dogs: Legion Review

Watch Dogs: Legion is the third game in the Watch Dogs series, and it feels like a pinnacle of what the series can do. Most open world games allow you to take your character anywhere, but Watch Dogs: Legion lets you take control of literally any person you encounter in the city. You are given the ability to scan any person, learn about their skills, and then complete a task for them to recruit them to your team. Completing a combat mission with a senior citizen or a spy is the ultimate in choice and freedom. 

The game has permadeath for your characters, which makes missions with your favorite characters feel more important. Exploring futuristic London is truly a sight made better on the PS5, and puts the hardware to the test. In the game, you are many characters who make up a group called DedSec, a hacktivist group who want to take down another hacker group and a private security group with a grip on the city. The story is pretty interesting, and the characters are well acted and thoughtful. As you complete the game, you will chase down side tasks, grow your abilities through a tech tree, and look for collectibles. All of the controls in the game are smooth and consistent, and you can see Ubisoft’s quality shine.

“Watch Dogs: Legion looks incredible, with great draw distances, and an incredibly detailed world.” — Erika Rawes, Product Tester

Best Challenge: Namco Bandai Games Demon's Souls

4.9

Amazon

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What We Like

• Punishing difficulty

• Rewarding gameplay

• Innovative world

What We Don't Like

• Not for the faint of heart

Demon's Souls Review

The remake of Demon’s Souls for the PS5 loses none of the difficulty and hideous grandeur of the original classic. BluePoint Games have done a masterful job of fixing bugs and overhauling the visuals with fantastic next-gen visuals.

Make no mistake, Demon’s Souls is a brutal experience that refuses to hold your hand through its claustrophobic corridors, gothic towers, and miserable stinking swamps haunted by decaying monsters designed to test your reflexes and strategic thinking. It’s a deep game with a steep learning curve. The reward for suffering such punishment is a feeling of accomplishment unparalleled in gaming. Even the smallest success in forward progression feels like a triumph.

Aside from the gorgeous next gen graphics and smooth 60fps frame rate that show off the impressive capabilities of the PS5, the variety of environments to traverse in Demon’s Souls keeps the game feeling fresh. After hours of trudging through what can charitably be described as an infected sewer, it’s refreshing indeed to visit the relatively bright and stormy seaside. Swapping between the five available regions also gives you the opportunity to take a breather from that one boss that keeps killing you, if only to die ignominiously to a random skeleton you failed to notice hiding in an alcove.

Along with the unique brand of multiplayer common among Souls games, Demon’s Souls is not only a worthy remake of the original classic that started it all, but this PS5 exclusive is perhaps the pinnacle of the franchise. It’s a wild ride, and one on that you must be prepared to die.

"Demon’s Souls on PS5 is stunning to behold, yet has lost none of the atmosphere of oppressive gloom that fans of the PS3 classic adored.” — Andy Zahn, Product Tester

Best Platformer: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

Walmart

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What We Like

• Fun world and characters

• Local Co-op

• Excellent level variety

What We Don't Like

• Controls can be finicky

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a spin-off from the Little Big Planet universe, which is a Playstation exclusive set of titles focused around crafted characters and worlds. These games usually have tons of tools for creating levels and mini-games. However, you won’t find the same tools in this spin-off, as it instead focuses solely on a platforming adventure to save Craftworld. This targeted approach makes for an accessible and entertaining ride as you complete level after level of colorful and exciting challenges. Even better, you can play couch co-op with another player. 

The story is cute and lighthearted and keeps you invested as you play. Level designs are well done, as each level offers a good amount of variety and things rarely feel repetitive. The stages have beautiful visuals and just make you feel good as you play them. You will hop, dash, and explore to a fun soundtrack that features some fun takes on popular songs. While the controls can be a bit loose at times and can lead to a few unfortunate failures, they’re not so bad that they’ll cause a huge amount of frustration. Sack Boy: A Big Adventure is best described as a fun time and a game where you can smile while playing, especially with someone next to you playing along.

Best for Kids: Bugsnax

Best Buy

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What We Like

• Fascinating world

• Good writing

• Clever puzzles

What We Don't Like

• Some odd technical issues

Bugsnax Hands On: A Shallow and Dubious Snack

Bugsnax creates an original world that will draw in kids and even some adults. In the game, you visit Snaktooth, an island that features Bugsnax, which are sentient food that mimic animals and bugs. As you arrive, you are thrust into a mystery surrounding a missing explorer and a town where everyone has gone their separate ways. Luckily, you can pull everything back together by helping each “Grumpus'' with locating their favorite Bugsnax. 

To locate them, you will need to take a picture of them, and then work out a small puzzle to capture them based on the creature. The puzzles are fun to solve and not overly difficult, so kids will be able to continue and achieve without getting frustrated. However, just because we selected this as the best kids game doesn’t mean there’s not something here for all gamers. It’s a fun game for kids and adults to play and talk about together (there is no co-op or multiplayer though, so you'd have to take turns or play on separate consoles). 

The characters are extremely well written, and there are some truly genuine moments in Bugsnax that players may find surprising considering the theme and weight of the game. While Bugsnax does not graphically push the PS5, it is a great game for kids to play, which is an area often missed by game publishers.

“The cuteness of the Bugsnax and the game’s similarities to creature-catchers like Pokémon might make it seem like the perfect game for younger audiences.” — Joshua Hawkins, Product Tester

Best RPG: Cyberpunk 2077

3.7

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What We Like

• Unparalleled visual quality

• Immense open-world cityscape

• Lifelike character models and animation

• Excellent voice acting

• Engaging campaign and side quests

What We Don't Like

• Rampant, game-breaking bugs

• Poor performance on all but high-end PCs

• Broken AI

• Missing features

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

Cyberpunk 2077 is a sprawling and detailed open-world game set in a dystopian cityscape and rendered in unparalleled detail. However, it is also deeply flawed with game-breaking bugs, missing features, and demanding hardware requirements. It also leans heavily into mature themes and content, and thanks to an extremely dark setting won’t be for everyone.

This is a first-person experience, with hundreds of widely varied weapons to do battle with and a vast array of unique cars to collect. There’s also a deep customization system where you can fine-tune everything from your character’s skills, abilities, and cybernetic implants, to your weapons and clothing. Combat and navigation are flawed, and the game’s promised AI is almost nonexistent, but it’s still fun to drive and fight your way through Night City.

The story is one of the highlights of the game, with good writing and acting paired with believable character models. Side quests can also be very enjoyable, though the main campaign is the most polished and features the most exciting set-piece moments. 

Cyberpunk 2077 can be a lot of fun, and it’s truly spectacular to behold, but you have to put up with a lot of irritating problems to enjoy it. You’d be well advised to wait for its most serious technical issues to be patched out, and even then you’ll need a beefy PC to experience it as its best

"The high quality of storytelling is probably the main highlight of the game, next to the insane graphical fidelity." — Andy Zahn, Product Tester

Final Verdict

With stunning graphics and a huge world to explore, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla earns our top pick as the best game for PS5. If you want something more succinct that shows off the PS5’s hardware and still offers a fun ride, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the way to go.

About our Trusted Experts: 

Erika Rawes has been writing professionally for more than a decade, and she’s spent the last five years writing about consumer technology. Erika has reviewed roughly 125 gadgets, including computers, peripherals, games, A/V equipment, mobile devices, and smart home gadgets. 

Andy Zahn has been writing for Lifewire since 2019 covering technology and games.

Andrew Hayward is a Chicago-based writer who's been covering tech and games since 2006. He's previously been published in TechRadar, Stuff, Polygon, and MacWorld.

What to Look for in a game for PS5:

Playability- Few things are more irritating than a glitchy game. Look for games that run smoothly, with clean transitions, tight controls, and minimal bugs (or prompt and reliable fixes for existing bugs).

Graphics- The PS5 has a 10.3-teraflop RDNA 2 GPU, 16 Gigs of RAM, and a 3.5-GHz 8-core AMD Zen 2 processor. With the upgraded hardware, game makers can take graphics up to the next level. Look for amazing visuals that truly feel next-gen. You want the game to look and run smoothly in the highest resolution/frame rates. 

Innovation- A new console gives developers the chance to push boundaries like they never have, introducing new gameplay, worlds, and novel mechanics. The best games have next-level controls and integration with new PS5 features like the DualSense controls and 3D audio. 

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