Narrowing the best Xbox One games down this far wasn’t easy, but somebody had to do it.
Despite getting off to a rather shaky start, Microsoft’s Xbox One has certainly redeemed itself in the eyes of gamers since its launch 3 years ago. Now, the all-in-one entertainment system is known for offering some of the best gaming experiences you can get.
As good a sign as any that the Xbox One brand is developing and growing is that Microsoft has shed the chunky and plain casing of the original console and replaced it with the smaller, 4K, HDR-capable and altogether much more aesthetically pleasing Xbox One S.
Things are only continuing to advance, and we’re currently looking ahead to November when Microsoft will release the next member of the Xbox family – the Xbox One X. This high-powered console is promising great things, bringing virtual reality and native 4K to Xbox owner living rooms. Xbox One X.
Although the future is looking increasingly crisp and 4K, Microsoft is making sure all of its original Xbox titles will be playable across every console, with many of them set to receive 4K patches!
No matter what console you’re looking to play on now and in the future, then, you should make sure you enjoy the great games that are available right now.
With so many to choose from, though, it can be hard to determine which games are worth your time and money. That’s where our 20-strong best of list is here to help.
Whether you’re looking for a high-octane adventure, a thrilling driving experience, a top quality first person shooter, or a left-field indie title you’ll be able to find it on Xbox.
Don’t forget you might be able to pick some of them up in the Black Friday sales if you’ve fallen behind. Black Friday The best Xbox One deals and Xbox One S deals The best Xbox One deals and Xbox One S deals
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 someone had to do it.
So, all that said, whether you’re still running a 500GB 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.
You’d have to be blind to miss this indie fantasy stunner
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.
The team-based shooter you need to buy on Xbox One
Overwatch has, without a doubt, been one of our favorite games to come out of the last year – garnering our Game of the Year 2016 award. Overwatch
It’s a classic team arena shooter from Blizzard that sets two six-person teams of wildly different characters against each other in a bright and cartoonish science fiction universe. And while it feels similar to the Call of Duty you’ve played before, Overwatch turns traditional shooters on their heads by adding unique character abilities and cooldowns to the mix that force you to strategize every once in a while instead of blindly running from room to room.
Great graphics, tight maps, and a good roster of characters to enjoy playing. Overwatch is good old fashioned fun and we thoroughly recommend it.
Consult your doctor first to see if Dark Souls 3 is right for you
Playing a Dark Souls game is a masochistic thing. The pain of losing to the same boss ten times in a row is crushing, but chasing the buzz of a victory makes it all worth it.
Dark Souls 3, the latest in the soul-crushing series, is back and more terrifying than ever. The graphics have been updated for the modern era, with stunning lighting effects, which illuminate all that is good, as well as what’s better left unseen.
The gameplay is faster than previous Souls games, riffing off of BloodBorne’s rapid pacing. Finally, the story and the online multiplayer come together to make this a game that you won’t put down once you pick it up.
Huge, exotic and amazing to behold: Australia is a petrol-head’s dream
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.
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.
A chilling return to form
Your gaming collection isn’t really complete if it doesn’t have a quality horror title and if we had to suggest one it’d be the newest installment in the Resident Evil franchise.
Resident Evil is the franchise that put survival-horror games on the map and though it lost its way slightly in later titles, the newest game is a return to form for Capcom.
By going back to the survival-horror basics and getting them dead on, Capcom has made Resident Evil 7 a genuinely frightening and exhilarating gaming experience. If you have the stomach for the gore, it’s absolutely worth playing.
Don’t miss our full review of the game. full review
They had the technology to rebuild him, better than before
The original Titanfall was a great game – so great that it long held a place on this very list. However, its sequel, Titanfall 2, improves on it every conceivable way: the motion is more fluid, there are more distinct titans to choose from and, hold onto your hats here, there’s actually a single-player campaign that might take the cake for the best first-person shooter story of the year.
This game’s pedigree is inherited from one of this generation’s smartest and most unusual shooters. The original Titanfall married ninja-fast on-foot combat to the gloriously thuggish thrill of piloting giant mechs, which are summoned from orbit a few minutes into each match.
The skill with which Respawn has balanced this mix of styles in the sequel is remarkable – Titans have firepower in excess but they’re easy to hit, and maps offer plenty of places for infantry to hide. These ideas coalesce into one of this year’s most remarkable entries in the genre and is well-deserving its own shot in the spotlight as well as a Game of the Year nomination.
A retro-slash-modern romp through the underworld
DOOM is very, very good. Not in a “wow, that’s good for a remake” kind of way, either. It’s genuinely a great shooter – so much so that we gave it a Game of the Year award in 2016. While Overwatch reinventing the wheel for first-person shooting games, DOOM impresses us by bringing us back to the time where dial-up internet was the only way to access AOL email: DOOM is, in so many ways, an excellent evolution of what the series was 20 years ago. It’s brutal. It’s bloody. It has devilish, frightening creatures that bleed when you slice them in half with a chainsaw. It’s the experience we wanted two decades ago but couldn’t articulate it because of the limitations of technology. DOOM Game of the Year award in 2016
A game that makes you the hunter and the hunted
In Arkane’s smart and stylish revival of the 2006 first-person shooter, the moon-orbiting Talos 1 space station is being overrun by Typhon, a shape-shifting collective of aliens. It’s up to your character, Morgan Yu, to fight back by any means necessary.
Similar to Dead Space and BioShock, Prey puts you in a complex, dangerous environment that you don’t completely understand, tasking you to explore the mysteries of the space station without succumbing to the disease that’s taken hold there. Challenging at first, Prey isn’t going to hold your hands while you learn the ropes. Stick it out, find the scattered neuromods and you may survive.
The name of the game is freedom in Lara’s latest sprawling outing
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.
A refreshing jump back in time
In the latest Battlefield game, DICE takes players back in time to World War One and by doing so completely rejuvenates the once stagnating franchise.
The game offers a poignant and entertaining single-player campaign that sets a new standard for first-person shooter. Broken into six sections, each following a different character and front line location, the campaign never feels dull or repetitive –and even feeds neatly into Battlefield 1’s multiplayer mode which, while familiar, also benefits from the much-needed breath of life that the change in setting gives.
