Narrowing the best Xbox One games down to 25 wasn’t easy, but somebody had to do it.
Even though the Xbox One is approaching its fifth birthday (which makes it positively geriatric in console years) we think it’s just reaching its peak. With a strong library of games and services to offer and lots more exciting new games in the pipeline, we think the Xbox One family of consoles has a lot of life in it yet.
Although the Xbox One receives criticism for its first-party lineup, it does have some unmissable genre-defining exclusives which include the Forza, Halo, Gears of War and Sea of Thieves series. And with the 4K capabilities of the Xbox One X, these games are looking better than ever.
Aside from its AAA releases, Xbox One is also a great place to find high-quality indie games thanks to its ID@Xbox program which has made titles like Ori and the Blind Forest and Cuphead absolutely essential plays for this generation.
It’s from this massive collection of titles that we compiled our list of the best games on the Xbox One – 25 essential games we think every gamer should have in their library. You could spend your time anywhere, but if you’re new, these are the game worlds we recommend visiting first.
Read on to see which games make the Xbox One shine – and, keep checking back periodically, as we update this list all the time with new titles we feel have become part of the exclusive society of must-play games.
After a year away, Assassin’s Creed is back and it’s bigger and better than ever. In Assassin’s Creed Origins you go back to ancient Egypt, before the brotherhood and before the Templars, where you play as the original assassin Bayek.
Assassin’s Creed is a series that was growing increasingly stale but with Origins the formula has been refreshed with new RPG mechanics, story-driven side quests and a far more free-flowing combat system.
Whether you’re new to the series or a fatiguing fan, Assassin’s Creed Origins is absolutely worth playing as it’s the strongest installment we’ve seen in years.
Read our full review of the game and our tips and tricks guide .
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.
Graphically impressive, entertaining, and sometimes touching, Battlefield 1 is a return to form for the series.
After a long development and lots of anticipation, Xbox indie exclusive Cuphead has finally been released. Was it worth the wait? It certainly was. Cuphead is a run-and-gun platformer with stationary boss fight levels thrown in.
We enjoyed Cuphead so much we named it Best Xbox Exclusive in our 2017 Game of the Year Awards .
Still, it’s an indie experience that shouldn’t be missed and you’ll only find it on Xbox and PC.
Dark Souls is an iconic series in the gaming world and with this remaster you have the chance to go back to where it all started in 2011, but with improved visual fidelity and performance. All the better to see those horrific and punishing enemies.
This is the same original game with all of its DLC but that’s no bad thing. Dark Souls is a fantastic, must-play title and it’s great to see it on the latest generation of consoles. Not just because the framerate bump to 60 fps makes it a much smoother and more exhilarating gameplay experience.
Following the surprise 2012 hit Dishonored wasn’t going to be an easy task, but Dishonored 2 has more than lived up to its expectations.
Picking up 15 years after the events of the original, Dishonored 2 takes players back to the Victorian Steampunk city of Dunwall. This time, though, you have the choice of whether or not you want to play as the original title’s protagonist Corvo, or his equally-skilled protegee Emily.
Dishonored 2 doesn’t differ wildly from the first game, but there was nothing wrong with Dishonored in the first place. What we get is a vastly improved and close to perfected take on it.
Anyone who likes their games filled with atmosphere, character, and a bit of wit and intelligence will find Dishonored 2 worth picking up.
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.
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. It’s a genre giant.
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.
FIFA is, for many console owners, a highly anticipated annual event. The latest and arguably greatest installment in the football sim series has arrived in the form of FIFA 18.
Whether you’re looking to play against others online, build up a management career on your own or play a cinematic story mode that’ll give you an insight into the dramatic life of a premier league footballer, FIFA has a game mode just for you.
The best thing is, there’s always more than enough to throw yourself into and agonize over until the next game rolls around with further incremental improvements that’ll convince you to upgrade.
You can read our full review of FIFA 18 right here and make sure you’re the best on the pitch using our tips and tricks guide.
Fortnite Battle Royale is a certified gaming phenomenon. Pitting 100 players against each other on a single map, it melds fun, cartoonish gameplay with a fierce competitive streak, and has attracted millions of players across the globe.
When starting up, you’re thrown onto an island with no weapons or armor and you must scavenge for supplies and fight for your life to be the last man (or squad) standing at the end of the game. The catch is that the map closes in as the match progresses, forcing players into tighter skirmishes and often whiteknuckle encounters. Best of all, however, the game is available for free on Xbox One, with in-game purchases limited to purely cosmetic options.
If you’re relatively restricted financially and need something to tied you over until the next big release, Fortnite is better than all the rest.
While the original Forza titles were about pristine driving skills around perfectly kept 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. Good news for Xbox One X owners – Forza Horizon 3 now has its 4K and HDR patch.
Despite a new platform, a new development team and a new-ish set of muscled heroes on its box art, Gears of War 4 isn’t some grand reimagining of the series that helped Xbox 360 go supernova back in 2006. But then again, such a revelation shouldn’t come as a shock – this is the cover shooter that made cover shooters a fad-filled genre all unto itself, so messing too drastically with that special sauce was never a viable option.
Instead, the Xbox One and Xbox One S get the Gears of War template we all know and love with a few extra features gently stirred into the pot. For a start, the jump to current-gen tech has made all the difference to The Coalition’s first full-fat Gears title. Spend a little time in the previously remastered Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and you’ll see how small and confined those original level designs were, even with a graphical upgrade to make it feel relevant again.
It’s more than just graphics, though. It’s the return to form for the franchise; the focus on what makes a Gears game so great, that really won us over.
Yes, including one of last generation’s greatest games among this generation’s finest is rather boring, but GTA V on Xbox One is too good to ignore, with HD visuals, a longer draw distance and a faster frame-rate.
Among other, more practical perks it includes a first-person mode, which genuinely makes this feel like a different game, though the missions, tools and characters are the same. The new perspective pushes Rockstar’s attention to detail to the fore, allowing you to better appreciate the landscape’s abundance of in-jokes and ambient details.
