It’s fair to say that as time goes on, the PlayStation 4 is losing more and more support from both Sony and third-party studios.
There are, of course, still plenty of great gaming experiences to be had with Sony’s last-gen machine, with a huge amount of PS4 games available, but if you’re still a PS4-exclusive gamer, you might want to start considering jumping to the PS5 ship.
December isn’t usually the most active month for game releases, but the pickings for PS4 this month are particularly slim, unfortunately, with just a handful of games hitting the console’s storefront this holiday season.
If you know where to look, though, you can still pick up some solid entertainment on PS4. Let’s take a look at the best PS4 games coming to Sony’s machine in December 2023.
SteamWorld Build (December 1st)
SteamWorld Build is a city-builder set in the broad and expansive SteamWorld universe.
If the thought of playing a city-builder with a controller fills you with dread, don’t worry; developer The Station has crafted this one to play equally well with keyboard and mouse or with a DualShock 4, for instance.
Build brings the beautiful graphical style of SteamWorld in contact with the workaday minutiae of a city-builder, so you know roughly what to expect; build your settlement, expand it, and try to keep the needs of your populace in check.
You must also make sure that you’re searching for resources in the monster-filled mine complexes beneath your settlement, however. Nothing’s ever easy when you’re in charge of a whole town, is it?
If you’ve loved previous SteamWorld games, this one promises to be another beautifully-crafted entry in what is becoming a fascinatingly varied series, even if you don’t have much city-builder experience.
Disney Dreamlight Valley (December 5th)
You might be thinking that you’ve already played Disney Dreamlight Valley, and you’d be correct to think so. This game technically launched back in September last year, but it’s getting a full release in December.
What does that mean if you’ve already bought the game? Mercifully, not too much; you won’t need to make another purchase, and you can hopefully look forward to additional polish and a few extra features here and there, especially if it’s been a while since you played.
New players will find a cosy and welcoming life sim with all the Disney charm you’ve come to expect from the brand. You can meet and befriend all kinds of Disney characters, and there are lots of activities to keep you busy as well.
Disney Dreamlight Valley’s full launch comes alongside the release of a paid expansion for the game, which will bring a whole new area to explore and new characters to meet, including Tangled’s Rapunzel and Wall-E’s Eve.
Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties: Definitive Edition (December 8th)
Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties is perhaps better considered as a curiosity rather than a fully-fledged game. It’s an FMV adventure with very few FMVs; rather, it tells what we must grudgingly refer to as its “story” in a series of still images.
Staggeringly cheap even by the standards of the time, Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties is probably about as close as you’ll get to a “so bad, it’s good” game, so grab some friends and get ready to take a trip back through time.
John and Jane are two singletons who are looking for love, and a chance meeting one day sets the wheels in motion for their romance to bloom.
That’s the setup, but it hardly does justice to how bizarre and surreal this game is. Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties must be seen to be believed, so pick this one up if you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Of course, if you want to check it out on YouTube instead, nobody’s going to blame you.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (December 14th)
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is a sort of sequel-slash-remake of Granblue Fantasy Versus. It takes the basic concepts of the original 2D anime fighter and adds a ton of bells and whistles.
Those bells and whistles include new characters, a revamped input system to help newcomers feel like they’re competing with experts, and an entirely new minigame in the form of the Fall Guys-esque Grand Bruise Legends.
You can also look forward to an action-RPG-inspired campaign mode, so if you like your fighting games with a substantial dose of single-player content, then look no further than Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.
The game is developed by Cygames and legendary studio Arc System Works, so you should know what to expect from that: gorgeous and fluid animation, satisfying combat, and rich, deep gameplay systems.
Gnosia (December 14th)
If the social deduction stylings of games like Among Us are a little too intense for you, then you may wish to check out Gnosia, which marries that gameplay style with a visual novel.
You are aboard a spaceship, and you must deduce which of your crewmates is one of the titular Gnosia, murderous aliens who are out for human blood.
It’s also possible for you to be a Gnosia, and if you are, you’ll know who else on board is a Gnosia. It’s essentially a single-player Werewolf or Town of Salem, but with added anime-style visuals.
As you play, you’ll also uncover the backstories of the crew members and learn about their world. If you can imagine Secret Hitler meets 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim with a healthy dose of Alien, you might not be a million miles away.
