Last week, PlayStation aired a super-sized State of Play stream that showed exactly what to expect from the PlayStation 5 in 2026 and beyond. It was an illuminating hour filled with genuine surprises, from a sequel to indie hit Kena: Bridge of Spirits to a full remake of the original God of War trilogy. But the biggest takeaway from the show wasn’t any one game. Rather, it’s that a big-picture strategy is coming into focus: PlayStation is all in on courting younger audiences.
That becomes clear when you start connecting some disparate dots. It first seemed like a push towards family-friendly games could be emerging in 2024 with the release of Astro Bot and Lego Horizon Adventures, though PlayStation didn’t follow that up with much in 2025. Now there’s much more evidence to suggest that those games were the start of a trend. Kena: Scars of Kosmora opened last week’s State of Play, a whimsical action-adventure sequel that calls back to the days of classic Sony series like Jak and Daxter. Notably, Sony is handling publishing duties for indie developer Ember Labs this time around. It’s a big investment in an IP that skews younger than many of Sony’s current heavy hitters.
Even those big players are getting an age adjustment, though. The recently revealed Horizon Hunters Gathering finds Guerrilla Games once again trying to make a Horizon game geared towards younger players. The upcoming co-op multiplayer game looks like Monster Hunter by way of Fortnite with its cheery visuals and colorful action, and certainly seems geared toward a similar audience as Lego Horizon Adventures.
