It certainly doesn’t feel like it, but it’s been three years since the Xbox One was first launched. Since its release, the console has been at the forefront of great gaming and has proven itself as a great home entertainment system into the bargain.
Fortunately, the Xbox One’s future looks as good as its past. With the launch of the Xbox One S, not only do we now have the option of a smaller and slimmer console, we also have access to wonderful 4K and HDR content. When it launched later this year, the high-powered Project Scorpio is promising us even greater things.
One of the biggest improvements we’ve seen from the new generation of Xbox consoles is in the area of graphics and performance. From the very beginning the Xbox One brought new and more advanced titles to our favorite exclusive franchises like Gears of War and Halo.
As well as bringing new games to old favorites, the Xbox One even enabled us to continue to enjoy some true classics thanks to backwards compatibility which gives access to over 250 Xbox 360 titles. This is a number which only appears to be growing.
As happy as we’ve been to get the chance to return to these classics, though, it’s also been great to see new and diverse titles like Sunset Overdrive and Ori and the Blind Forest come to the console.
With such a large and diverse library of games at our thumb tips, it’s not easy to narrow them down into a ‘best of’ list but we’ve done it.
Whether you’re still running a launch console, have just picked up an Xbox One S , or you’re scouting out what you’ll be able to get if you decide to pick up Project Scorpio , our guide to the best Xbox One games will help you make the most of your console. We’re always updating it, too, so you’ll never fall behind on the latest and greatest releases.
So without further ado, check out our top picks for the best games released on the system, and look out for the HDR -enabled delights of Gears of War 4, and Forza Horizon 3 in the near future.
A top-class graduate of the « Metroidvania » school of action-adventure design, in which an enormous world gradually opens up as you unlock new abilities, Ori is the kind of experience you show a reactionary relative who thinks « videogame art » is a contradiction in terms.
There’s the world, to start with – a dreamlike maze of canted-over trunks, thorny caverns and sunlit glades – but it’s not just a question of blissful visuals. Ori is a crisp, empowering platformer, with a main character who learns to scurry up surfaces and ricochet away from projectiles, like a spacecraft « sling-shotting » around a planet.
The Definitive Edition improves upon the original by adding new areas to explore and additional background on one of the game’s most beloved characters.
Despite being the sequel to a prequel about the young life of the Lara Croft, this still feels like a Tomb Raider game that has grown up. The reboot which saw a brave new direction for the franchise seemed a lot of the time to be little more than a bit of light Uncharted cosplay, but Rise is a far more accomplished game.
There’s now a genuine open world which feels like there is always something to do, and something more than just harvesting up collectibles in exchange for a light dusting of XP. There are also tombs. Yes, that might seem a fatuous thing to say given the name, but the previous game gave them short shrift. In Rise though they are deeper and more plentiful. Rise also has one of the best narratives of any Tomb Raider game, penned again by Rhianna Pratchett, it’s sometimes rather poignant.
So come on, ditch Fallout 4’s wasteland for a while and give Lara some love.
While the original Forza titles were about pristine driving skills around perfectly upkept tracks, the Horizon series has a penchant for trading paint and isn’t afraid to have you get down and dirty with off-road races from time to time. As with its predecessors, Forza Horizon 3 uses the pretext of a fictional festival called Horizon, in which car enthusiasts get together to race and party, as an excuse for its gameplay.
Unlike previous years where you’re cast as an unknown underdog, however, Forza Horizon 3 throws you into the deep end as the festival’s director allowing you to build out the event exactly to your liking. (Thankfully, that’s as easy as accepting quests, unlocking new cars and forcing other drivers to eat your dust.)
While the first two entries in Turn 10’s spin-off franchise surprised and delighted, Forza Horizon 3 is the unabashed pinnacle of the series, and stands amid some of the greatest racing games ever made.
All things considered, this is one of the best games Bethesda has made. It ticks all the boxes: a massive, detail-oriented open-world; still-fantastic tenets of looting and shooting; a story filled with intriguing side quests and subplots that feel like they matter; and of course a classic soundtrack that brings it all to life. In many ways it’s the game we’ve been waiting for since Fallout 3 steered the series away from its top-down role-playing roots. Not only is the world itself wider, but the plot is better, and more digestible, than any of the games before it. There’s still a sense of mystery about what’s happening but you no longer have to dig forever and a day through terminals to piece it together.
Welcome home, stranger.
Inquisition is the proverbial RPG banquet – a 200-hour array of quests, magic-infused scraps, postcard landscapes and well-written character interactions that’s perhaps a bit too familiar, at times, but makes up for it with sheer generosity.
It puts you in charge not just of a four-man party of adventurers but also a private army with its own castle and attendant strategic meta-game, tasked with defeating a mysterious demon menace.
The choice of Unreal Engine makes for vast open environments and sexily SFX-laden combat – fortunately, you can pause the latter to issue orders if the onslaught becomes overwhelming.
