The 10 optimal PS4 games for kids

Sackboy: A Big Adventure screen shot
(Image acknowledgment: Sumo Digital/YouTube)

If you have children, then you'll be eased to hear that the best PS4 games for kids are, in just about cases, also the best PS4 games for teens and adults. While plenty of kids' games are simple shovelware, designed to distract puppylike minds without rewarding them, there are also few real gems.

The Tom's Guide staff has rounded up 10 of our very favorite PS4 games for kids — and we promise that we would lief ride down and play whatsoever one of these ourselves.

About of the games along this list are platformers, since the "mascot platformer" has been a josh-friendly favorite ever since Super Mario hopped his way across the Mushroom Land back in 1985. But if your child prefers racing games, interactive sandboxes or nonunion-ma adventures, we've got them covered as recovered.

If none of these titles pique their interest, thither's forever the Class & Kids section in the PlayStation Store. Just embody aware that some of those games are real clunkers.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy screen shot

(Image credit: Activision)

1. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

If you grew up playing Crash Bandicoot games on PlayStation, you'll be happy to get word that your kids can now do the same on the PS4. (You may also be dismayed by the fast and relentless passage of time, so fair warning.) The Clang Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy gathers the first three games in the series in a single collection, adding improved graphics and smoother performance.

Patc the games can be pretty difficult, they're also bright, colorful and agreeable. They may also give your child a slight edge up Chartless 4: A Thief's End, since Crash crops dormie in a memorable level of that game.

Hot Wheels Unleashed screen shot

(Image credit: Milepost S.r.l.)

2. Hot Wheels Unleashed

Kids love racing games; kids also love kick the bucket-cast cars. Hot Wheels Unleashed combines these two venerable pastimes with a fast-paced arcade racer that can get surprisingly recondite. You can race against other toy cars; you backside progress up your skills in a single-player campaign mode; you rear end test your speed eventually trials; you can even ramp up your own levels, thanks to a big-chested track editor.

Hot Wheels Unleashed has 60 playable cars, and since it's settled along a real toy line, whatsoever of your nestling's favorites power be present. With split up-concealment multiplayer, parents can also take the wheel.

Marvel's Spider-Man screen shot

(Image credit: Sony)

3. Marvel's Spider-Man

Wonder's Wanderer-Man is cheating a tur, since the stake is rated T and decidedly has an older audience in mind. However, if you don't mind some mild violence and language, Spider-Man is probably precise for tweens too.

Even more so than the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Wanderer-Man connected PS4 captures the geographical essence of the character, forcing him to work sturdy right choices spell protective the metropolis he loves. The net-slinging feels dead perfect, from the daring leaps to the rapid dives, and the combat offers difficulty options to wooing every skill level.

Minecraft on PS4

(Image credit: Microsoft)

4. Minecraft

Minecraft is a gamy that needs no intromission. If your child loves commandeering your phone to build their possess three-dimensional utopia, think how overmuch happier they'll be when they have a wholly heavy covert to explore. (And how much happier you'll represent to have your device back.)

For those who have never tried it, Minecraft is a creative simulation game in which players search a pixelated fantasy world, forage for resources, and utilisation what they find to ramp up spectacular structures. It's sort of like a member version of playing with Legos — if you could use Legos to build life-size of it castles.

New Super Lucky's Tale screen shot

(Image credit: Playful Corp.)

5. New Super Lucky's Tale

There's nothing Thomas More wholesome than a good gray-fashioned sketch platformer, and that's on the dot what Spic-and-span Super Lucky's Tale is. You play as a caped fox named Lucky who journeys across a colorful fairyland to protect the superhuman book of Ages from an evildoer known as Jinx.

New Super Lucky's Tale boasts a ton of variety, with some 2D and 3D levels, and a variety of puzzles to solve. The trump part of New Super Propitious's Tale, however, is that information technology's bu a good game with a duration and difficulty good-suited to its untested target audience.

lego dc super villains

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

6. Lego DC Super-Villains

Lego DC Super-Villains is one of the newer licensed Lego adventures, but really, you could choose near any Lego plot for this one-armed bandit. There are Lego games that cover Star Wars, Chivvy Potter, The Avengers and plenty of otherwise hot franchises.

Nevertheless, there is something delightfully alarming about Lego DC Super-Villains, which lets you teach the do-gooders a lesson for a change. You play Eastern Samoa the Joker, Lex Luthor, Cheetah and other devotee-favorite baddies as they square dispatch against the Justice Conference in a surprisingly good original story. Like most Lego games, this combined is co-op, so you and your child can romp together.

ratchet and clank

(Image credit: Sony Computer Entertainment)

7. Ratchet & Clank (2016)

Ratchet & Clank (2016) isn't just one of the best PS4 games for kids; it's same of the outflank PS4 games, period. This bring up of Insomniac's classical enfranchisement equal into the afflicted-fated movie of the same name, but don't hold that against it.

Whereas the Ratchet & Clank movie felt uninteresting and foreseeable, the Ratchet dow &A; Clangoring game had plenty of time to let the story breathe, also Eastern Samoa a mixture of enthralling worlds to explore and pleasing gadgets to accumulate. Don't exist surprised if you find yourself starting your possess keep file in, though; the game has a little of risqué humor that adolescent children may not amply grok.

Sackboy A Big Adventure

(Image credit: Sumo Sheffield)

8. Sackboy: A Big Adventure

LittleBigPlanet has been a family-friendly pillar since the PS3 era, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure is its latest entry. You take hold of the titular adventurer as he makes his way crosswise a series of 3D platforming challenges.

There's a spatula-shaped story, but that's not really the draw. Instead, Sackboy: A Big Adventure relies on creative and memorable visuals to get its point across. Everything in the unfit looks like information technology came out of a colorful crafts stock. Busy four players can work in tandem bicycle to fix their mode through each tricky level, which is good news for siblings who like to play together.

Sonic Colors Ultimate screen shot

(Image credit: Dim-sighted Squirrel Amusement)

9. Sonic Colours Ultimate

Transonic the Hedgehog has been a lynchpin in kids' games since the '90s, but not every Sonic back is created equal. In fact, most of them are downright forgettable (to put it politely). Sonic Colors Ultimate, however, generally nails the balance between rapid position-scrolling and more open-ended 3D environments.

This time more or less, recurring nemesis Dr. Robotnik has built a dastardly pleasure ground, which Sonic must come through, tackling a serial of tough bosses along the way. There aren't also many surprises here for longtime Sonic fans, merely it should entice younger players WHO may not have experienced the Blue Blur's antics ahead.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated

(Image credit: Handy Games/THQ Nordic)

10. SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated

For the record, SpongeBob Squarepants was a bit subsequently my time. That's wherefore I was impressed when I went hands-happening with SpongeBob Squarepants: Combat for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated and found it to be a perfectly good platformer on its own merits. If your kids like SpongeBob earlier, and so it's in all likelihood an flatbottom major go through.

In this 3D action game, you take charge of the titular sponge, who leaps around individual levels, collecting trinkets and belligerent off cuneate foes and the occasional boss. If you played this one back in the day, you'll make up pleased to know information technology's still fun.

Marshall Honorof

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's insurance coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a scientific discipline writing scop, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and engineering science. After hours, you can find oneself him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.

The 10 best PS4 games for kids

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-ps4-games-kids