Published Aug 9, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT
Austin King is the Senior Editor of Gaming at ScreenRant and has been with the site since 2020 with a focus on RPGs and tabletop games. He previously managed content for Geek to Geek Media, and has served as a writer for sites like Nintendad, Geek Fitness, and more.
In addition to his work at ScreenRant, he also hosts the Dragon Quest FM podcast and is the author of several books, including co-writing Nimbus (a #1 bestseller in 2013). His latest is the nonfiction The Dragon Quest Book, available now.
He's written about pop culture, video games, and genre studies over the course of his career. You can find him on BlueSky, X, and at Dragonquestaustin.com
Sony's PlayStation 2 is the best-selling console of all time, and there's a good reason for that. The PS2 had some of the best video games of the 2000s, especially when it came to exclusives like Jak & Daxter, Grand Turismo 3, and Final Fantasy 10. Even multi-platform releases like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Guitar Hero 2 sold better on the PS2.
The PlayStation 2's deep library of games was so stacked that it's hard to imagine some of its biggest hits not being played by just about everyone. In the years since, remasters and remakes for some of its best-selling titles have also brought those games to a larger audience. Here are some of the games everyone was playing on PS2 back in the 2000s.
3 Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy 10 made huge technical leaps to bring the long-running RPG franchise to Sony's PS2. It had voice acting, a great love story, and an in-depth sports mini-game called blitzball. All of that helped make it become one of the best-selling games on the console — and the best-selling RPG on PS2 overall.
Seriously, FF10 was so popular after it came out. It seemed like everyone was talking about its ending, which I won't spoil here, or raving about its graphics, which feel dated now but were unbelievable back then. Even people who didn't normally play RPGs or like fantasy games played Final Fantasy 10, and all the HD remaster ports over the past decade have only made the game even more popular.
2 Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Naughty Dog, which up until that point had been known for the Crash Bandicoot series, mixed things up by introducing us to the wacky duo of Jak and Daxter. Mixing platformer elements with The Legend of Zelda-like adventuring and puzzle-solving, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was a big win for Sony that went on to become one of the best-selling PS2 games of all time.
After a few sequels on PS2, and some spin-offs on other PlayStation consoles, Jak and Daxter have been missing from the most recent generations of PlayStation systems. Fans are still clamoring for new Jak and Daxter games, though, even if it seems like both Sony and Naughty Dog have moved on. It is a bit odd that the series seems done, considering how many people were playing Jak and Daxter back in the day.
1 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
If you owned a PS2, then you probably owned a Grand Theft Auto game, and if you owned only one of them, then it was GTA: Vice City. If you were alive in 2002, then you probably remember the Vice City trailer that aired everywhere and used "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Seagulls. If you were too young to buy the M-rated game, then you likely had a relative or friend that you watched play it.
Honorable mentions: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Kingdom Hearts, God of War, and Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec.
GTA was already a popular franchise, but it feels like Vice City on PS2 is really what cemented it as a major video game cornerstone. It certainly helped boost sales for San Andreas and later numbered entries, all of which are some of the best-selling games on their respective consoles. Even now, Vice City is considered the best GTA game by a wide margin of people, and it all started when the game arrived on PlayStation 2.
Brand Sony
Original Release Date February 4, 2000
Original MSRP (USD) $299
Weight 4.85 lb
English (US) ·