The 10 best Xbox One exclusive games worth playing

Xbox has rightfully garnered a lot of ire from fans for not quite delivering the big triple-A quality exclusives that you see Nintendo and PlayStation put out. Whether it’s maintaining Minecraft or releasing the Ori games on other platforms, Xbox is best known for the platform and services it offers more than its exclusive games. While that is the case, there is plenty to love on an Xbox that you can not experience on the other consoles. Here are the best exclusive Xbox One games you need to give a try if you have the console.

Related: The 10 best open world games on Xbox Series X/S

The best exclusive Xbox One games

Forza Horizon 3

If you are a car fan, you can’t go wrong with any of the Forza Horizon games, but the third entry in the popular racing series is our favorite. It takes place in Australia, which looks absolutely gorgeous, and the Hot Wheels DLC expansion is honestly one of the best add-ons we have ever played. You could get the newer Hot Wheels DLC in Horizon 5, but we prefer Horizon 3 just a bit. The game is tight enough for anyone who wants a simulation racer but fun enough for a casual crowd to get invested in as well. You can simply drive all over the Outback and lose time getting lost in the world.

Grounded

Grounded is a neat survival game that was a small side project for Obsidian Entertainment. You and up to three friends play as four shrunken kids as they fight bugs, gather resources to survive, and find a way to enlarge yourselves to normal height again. This is essentially the closest we have ever gotten to a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids game, and it is a great substitute. We highly recommend getting a group of friends together when you play this. It’s much better with a group that can work together as you explore and figure out what is going on around this dangerous backyard.

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite may have its detractors because of how 343 Industries has largely dropped the ball in supporting the game as a live service to this point, but this is still the best and most modern Halo multiplayer. Many new features have been added that make this one of the best Halo experiences ever; it just needs a better content plan. The campaign is also a great time, being open-ended and letting you explore a very large area as Master Chief works to pick up the pieces from Halo 5: Guardians.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Like Halo Infinite, The Master Chief Collection had some problems when it was first released, but it is almost completely unrecognizable from that early stage today. The games run brilliantly, Reach and ODST were added to the collection, Custom Game matchmaking was added, and free battle pass-like seasons keep content flowing into the game. These classic games are all still a blast to return to today and are a great reminder of Xbox’s greatest achievement.

Killer Instinct

Killer Instinct is a return of the brutal one-on-one fighter from Rare’s catalog that had its fans but disappeared for years before being revived on the Xbox One. The game feels great to play and is filled with a memorable cast of characters and some Xbox crossovers. If you are a fighting game fan, nailing the combos in Killer Instinct will definitely draw you in.

Rare Replay

Rare Replay is a collection of games to celebrate the first 30 years of Rare. While there is a lot of unwanted fluff in here that honestly is not good to go back to, being able to jump back into classics like Banjo-Kazooie, Tooie, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Viva Piñata, and Perfect Dark makes it all worth it. Of course, Rare’s Donkey Kong Country games aren’t here because Nintendo owns those, but the collection is even getting better in 2023, with Goldeneye 007 being accessible by anyone who owns Rare Replay.

Sea of Thieves

Pirates are cool, and Sea of Thieves is probably the closest we will get any time soon to a game that lets you go and make your own adventure on the open sea with friends. Over time, curated adventures have been added to the game in the Tall Tales, including Pirates of the Caribbean content, but the true selling point here is still making a party with friends and looking for treasure by finding it on islands or taking it from other players.

State of Decay 2

State of Decay 2 improves in almost every way imaginable on the first game. It added much-needed multiplayer functionality, let you play on multiple maps, made the zombies more fearsome, and improved the survival experience. Over time, plenty of content has been added to the game in various areas that will let you put dozens of hours into the game without getting tired of the experience. Here’s hoping that the upcoming third game will continue to take this series to new heights.

Sunset Overdrive

Before Sony acquired Insomniac Games and made their Spider-Man games, they created a colorful, fun-filled game in Sunset Overdrive that was largely overlooked at a time when the Xbox One was being outpaced by the PlayStation 4 in every way. That being said, this game is one of Insomniac’s best, giving you a heavily comic-inspired action game to play through that knows how to have a laugh. If you missed it the first time around, you definitely should give Sunset Overdrive a try on your Xbox when you get a chance.

Titanfall

We’re just going to come out and stay it: we think the original Titanfall feels better to play than the heavily loved sequel that came out years later. There is no campaign, but we absolutely loved jumping in our Titans and on enemy Titans as we fought each other. Sure, looking at it now shows a pretty standard shooter compared to things like Apex Legends, but Titanfall is a game that feels great to play even today.