The best caves and coolest caverns in the history of PlayStation

Since the dawn of gaming, players have found themselves intrinsically drawn to exploring holes in the ground, and Sony's consoles have provided plenty of opportunities to embark on subterranean adventures. So strap on your head torch and join us, as we delve deep inside the best caves and coolest caverns in the history of PlayStation.

Portal 2

Hey, no one said every cave had to be a physical space. We adore Portal 2’s Cave Johnson. Brilliantly voiced by Oscar-winner JK Simmons, Johnson is Aperture Science’s billionaire CEO. He helps guide Chell through an abandoned facility from beyond the grave via colourful recordings.

Destiny

Eat that delicious Destiny cheese. Gaming’s naughtiest cave surely belongs to Bungie’s space shooter. Located in the Skywatch region of Earth’s Cosmodrome, this cheaty loot hole would continually spawn aliens, allowing Guardians to mine endless Engrams. The glitch was patched, but its cheeky spirit won’t be forgotten.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Trust Nate to out-pretty every other cave. Among Thieves’ 17th chapter sees Drake and mountaineering expert Tenzin brave the absurdly elaborate climbing puzzles of a frozen cavern nestled deep within the Himalayas. Highlights include sexy stalactites, giant wheel mechanisms and the odd feral yeti.

Firewatch

Campo Santo’s tenderly scripted hit revels in those epic bantz the kids so love. It’s also great at creating virtual caves. As fire lookout Henry shares sarcasm and sentiment with colleague Delilah, his quest through the forests of Shoshone National Park eventually takes him to Cave 452 and an eerie grotto that holds the game’s darkest secret.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Ooh, bit nippy in ‘ere, huh? Chillwind Depths is a cave to the south of Skyrim’s Dragon Bridge that suffers from a plumbing problem. Still, the fact this icy den is flooded is but a mere inconvenience next to its resident arachnid infestation: Chillwind is crawling with Frostbite Spiders. Which probably explains all the corpses.

The Cave

It’d be downright rude to ignore Ron Gilbert’s subversive subterranean puzzler considering its title. It offers a range of eclectic areas that couldn’t be further from your average dank dwelling – Gilbert’s definition of ‘cave’ stretches to underground castles, labs and even a fairground. Cave candy floss for all!

Tomb Raider

Ewww. Lara, you’ve got a teensy bit of blood on you. May we suggest a moist towelette? Deep into Croft’s 2013 reboot, Lara escapes a pair of nutjobs by leaping off a bridge and into a river of vein juice. We could have picked from dozens of cave scenes, but this one wins out thanks to the abundance of Noel’s House Party gunge.

Spelunky

You’ll never clap eyes on a cuter set of cave networks than the darling selection offered up by this ace roguelike. The adorable spelunker is treated to endless subterranean adventures thanks to the game’s procedurally generated caverns, meaning no two levels are ever alike. Hands down PlayStation’s most addictive set of caves.

Minecraft

Who’d have thought you could squeeze so many differently flavoured caves out of gaming’s most basic-looking (if iconic) bricks? Large caverns, small caverns, circular caverns, sea-access caves… Minecraft is a master of so many ore-stuffed underground structures, it’ll make your noggin spin.

This article originally appeared in Official PlayStation Magazine. For more great PlayStation coverage, you can subscribe here.