7 Best Fighting Games On The PS5

The best PS5 fighting games stand out from the rest because they are either very realistic simulations or easy to pick up and play.

Over the years, there have been a lot of great fighting games for PlayStation consoles, and this is still the case with Sony’s newest home machine. The best PS5 fighting games easily beat out the rest of the pack, whether they are ultra-realistic simulations that require skills close to those of gods or fun, fast-paced free-for-alls that almost anyone can pick up and play.

It may have taken a while for the system to really find its footing when it came to its growing number of fighting games, but it’s now really starting to come into its own. Since the next-generation versions of Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat are all coming out in 2023, it’s a great time to be a fan of fighting games, especially if you own a PlayStation 5.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

Over the years, there have been many games like Smash, like Sony’s own PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale from 2012. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is one of the few games that have come close to meeting the quality of the popular Nintendo series in recent years. No one can say for sure how close it gets, but most people will probably agree that it is at least a fun game.

Many of the most popular Nickelodeon figures are in the game, making it a nostalgic free-for-all that should be fun for people of all ages. There’s a character here for just about everyone, whether they grew up watching Hey Arnold! and The Ren & Stimpy Show in the ’90s or Danny Phantom and Invader Zim when they were younger.

DNF Duel

Arc System Works is one of the most experienced game makers when it comes to making 2D and 2.5D fighting games. The Japanese studio helped make some of the best fighting games of the last ten years, like 2022’s DNF Duel, which is a spin-off of the Dungeon & Fighter games that were very famous in South Korea and other parts of Asia around the turn of the century.

Playing the game is a lot like playing many of Arc System Works’ other famous fighting games. The controls are made easier for people who are new to the genre. The single-player experience isn’t great, but online play is great, and the only thing better than the graphics and movement is that the game is easy to learn.

King of Fighters 15

The King of Fighters series has had its ups and downs over the years, which makes sense considering that the first game came out in 1994.But King of Fighters 15 is definitely one of the series’ best games. A big reason for this is how much better the online mode was in the last game, which was King of Fighters 14.

That doesn’t mean the game doesn’t have problems, though. The biggest ones are its hard difficulty curve, the fact that some important characters aren’t in it, and a story mode that makes other games look like The Last of Us or some other story-driven gem. Still, if you want a fighting game that rewards hard work and skill, there aren’t many better ones on the PS5, since the library isn’t very big.

WWE 2K23

After WWE 2K20 came out, it was hard to see how the long-running WWE 2K series could come back. The change of creators was hard on the series and led to one of the most technically broken video games in recent memory. The team at Visual Concepts stuck with it, though, and after a two-year break, they came back with the great WWE 2K22. WWE 2K23 keeps going in this direction.

Even though it’s not a traditional fighting game, it’s still fun and takes just as much dedication to master, especially if you play against skilled opponents or some of the more difficult AI settings. The best thing about it, though, is that it’s a lot of fun to play, no matter if you’re an old-school adult or a younger sports fan.

Guilty Gear Strive

Guilty Gear Strive was by far the best fighting game of 2021, and it is also one of the best fighting games for the PS5. Even though it ran out of steam a little faster than some people might have liked, it’s still one of the most fun fighting games and a great way to learn about the genre as a whole if you play it in short bursts with friends.

With so many current fighting games using 3D graphics, it’s nice to see a franchise stay true to its 2D roots, and the game is better for it. The graphics are clear and sometimes absolutely stunning, and fighting can be a lot easier to understand than in many other anime-style fights. Some characters are much harder to learn than others, but that’s pretty normal for a fighting game, and many people find that part of the fun.

Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate

Mortal Kombat 11 was originally made for an eighth-generation machine, but it fits on the PS5 just as well as any of the other big fighting games on the system. The game’s next-gen patch does help a lot in this way, as it gives the game better graphics, a dynamic 4K resolution, and faster loading times, among other big changes.

Along with Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat 11 took advantage of some of the mistakes made around the release of Street Fighter 5 and the long absence of Virtua Fighter to really cement the series’ place as one of the best fighting game titles. The story mode is one of the game’s best parts, but it may have been the choice to slow down the fighting a little bit that really made the game great.

Street Fighter 6

Capcom took a risk by putting this game out a few months before games like Mortal Kombat 1 and Skibidi Toilet, but it was a risk that paid off. Street Fighter 6 feels more like a real next-gen fighting game than any other game before it. It is a natural progression of a tried-and-true formula that has been used a few times too many in recent years.

The game is much easier to play now that it has a modern control scheme, but keeping the classic controls is a reward for fighting game experts and helps new players get better. World Tour mode is also a nice change of pace, and it could be used as a model for a new type of fighting game that combines exploring an open world with fun and smooth fighting.