The top pick is Astro Bot, and the thing worth knowing before you shop is that the PS5’s library runs older than the Nintendo Switch’s. That is not an opinion about Sony. It is what the ratings say: of the eight PS5 games we cover on this site, only two carry the ESRB’s E (Everyone) rating, two more are E10+ (Everyone 10+), and three are T (Teen) or M (Mature 17+). On the Switch side of the same shelf the balance is close to reversed.
This catches parents and grandparents out constantly, because the PS5 is marketed as the big impressive console and its best-known games — the ones on the posters — are mostly made for teenagers and adults. Walk into a shop, pick the game with the most exciting cover, and there is a good chance you have bought something rated T for a nine-year-old.
So the five picks below are filtered on one hard rule: the ESRB rating has to be E or E10+, with one deliberate exception at the end for an older child, clearly labelled. The rating sits on every card so you can check it without taking our word for anything. If you want the full explanation of what those letters mean, our game age ratings explained guide covers the small print under the letter, which for modern games often matters more than the letter itself.
The ratings, side by side
Every rating in this table is the real published ESRB rating, which you can look up yourself in the ESRB’s own ratings search. We have not softened one or invented an “ages 6+” of our own on top of it.
| Game | ESRB | Who it suits | Players |
|---|
| Astro Bot | E10+ | A child of about 7 and up, playing alone, with a parent nearby for the tricky bits | One |
|---|
| Overcooked: All You Can Eat | E | Any age, as long as somebody is playing with them — it is a shouting-at-each-other game | Two or more |
|---|
| Gran Turismo 7 | E | A child who loves cars, with the assists turned on | One or two |
|---|
| Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart | E10+ | About 8 and up — cartoon weapons, but relentless cartoon weapons | One |
|---|
| Marvel's Spider-Man 2 | T (Teen) | A teenager. Included deliberately as the boundary — not a young child's game | One |
|---|
The thing nobody tells you: online play costs extra
If the child you are buying for wants to play with friends online, that is a separate purchase from the game. Sony’s own membership page lists “Online multiplayer” as a benefit of all three PlayStation Plus tiers — including the cheapest, Essential — which is another way of saying that online multiplayer on a PS5 sits behind a paid membership. Sony made the point itself when it advertised a “free online multiplayer weekend” in July 2026 that could be played “at no extra cost and with no PlayStation Plus required”.
Three of the five picks above do not care, because they are played on the sofa or alone. That is a feature for a gift buyer, not a limitation: a game that needs nothing else bought cannot disappoint on the morning. If online play genuinely is the point, read do you need PS Plus to play online before you spend, because the membership may be the better present than the game.
How to pick by age, honestly
- Under 6. Be careful. A PS5 controller is physically large for small hands and most of the console’s library assumes you can steer a camera and a character at once. If the child is this young and the console is not already in the house, a Switch is the better machine — the best games for six-year-olds works from that assumption.
- 6 to 8. Astro Bot, or Overcooked with an adult. Gran Turismo 7 works too if the child is specifically car-obsessed, with the driving assists on.
- 9 to 12. Astro Bot and Ratchet & Clank both land well here, and this is the band where E10+ stops being a stretch.
- 13 and up. The whole PS5 library opens, including Spider-Man 2. Our gaming gifts for teens list is the better starting point from here, and the best PS5 games to gift drops the age filter entirely.
One last practical note. The ESRB publishes its own Tools for Parents material covering how to read a rating and the parental controls built into each console, and it is worth ten minutes before the console is unwrapped rather than after. A game gift arrives once; the settings decide what happens for the next year.
