We're now fully embedded in the Xbox Series X and Series S generation, each console offering something different depending on your budget and space, but both with the same roster of amazing games to explore.
We've gathered together the very best titles for the latest Xboxes right here, in a tight and carefully curated list of your best options.
Elden Ring
Sublime world
An unbelievable experience from start to finish.
- Amazing sense of discovery
- Rewarding learning curve
- Superb weird mythic story
- Can be obscure
- Super-hard combat
FromSoftware has managed a heck of a feat in the form of Elden Ring, perfectly blending its more linear design philosophies with the freedom of an open world to create a huge environment that you can explore in the order you prefer.
Wherever you turn, though, you'll encounter amazing enemies to overcome in tense and complex combat, with myriad weapons to try out and combinations to explore. Elden Ring will be a phenomenon for a long time.
Disco Elysium
Brilliant RPG
A game that lets you approach conversations from a truly crazy point of view.
- Amazing writing
- Superb freedom
- So many endings
- Very wordy
An RPG so inventive that it has to be played to be believed, Disco Elysium rips up your expectations by letting you truly go off the rails in conversations and in your decisions. You play as a deadbeat cop who's struggling to close a complicated case, and how you approach things is up to you.
It looks great but the writing is the real star here, with great voice acting bringing it to life and a frighteningly believable dystopian world to explore. If every major RPG let you take this much control, the world would be an interesting place indeed.
Starfield
Explore the galaxy
A huge and immersive space-faring adventure awaits, with side-quests that just beg for your attention.
- So much to see and do
- Some brilliant quests
- Lovely sense of wonder
- A big glitchy
- Sometimes a little disconnected
Speaking of major RPGs, they don't come much bigger than Starfield, the first brand-new world from Bethesda in ages and an absolutely stonking big game. It lets you explore a galaxy of 1,000 planets, and while many of them don't offer up much, those that do have authored quests are amazing fun.
You'll meet a huge cast of characters, explore a massive world and make your way through some really memorable questlines, all of it looking seriously excellent on the latest Xbox hardware.
Forza Horizon 5
A driver's paradise
Quite possibly the most beautiful and enjoyable driving game ever.
- Gorgeous visuals
- Exciting map
- Countless cars
- Pretty familiar
Forza Horizon 5 might not be the bravest of new directions, but this is a franchise that knows what it does well. It's a brilliant open-world racing game that looks simply brilliant on Series X, with gorgeous visuals that beat pretty much every other driving game.
This time the action has moved to Mexico, and that makes for really varied and beautiful environments, with a great soundtrack and absolutely oodles of racing to get through.
Halo Infinite
The best modern Halo
Xbox's biggest franchise delivers a beautiful new game.
- Great new open areas
- Same old Halo chaos
- Simpler story
- Could look more revolutionary
Of course, when you think Xbox you think Halo, and while Infinite took a while to arrive, it's now here in the form of a masterful new campaign and terrific free-to-play multiplayer offering.
This really is Halo back to its best, with a freeform and open-world design that lets you tackle things in your own order and plenty of sandbox fun that rewards you for experimenting with the tools afforded to you.
Marvel's Midnight Suns
Superhero strategy
An excellent strategy game wrapped up in a fun superhero social simulator, this is a real treat to play.
- Excellent strategy
- Fun characters
- Zippy script
- Takes a while to get going
A brilliant strategy game from the minds at Firaxis, you take charge of an expansive group of superheroes, some incredibly famous and others you might know less well.
Battles are strategic card-playing puzzles, while you also get plenty of time to develop friendships and loyalty with your new crew in downtime. It's a really satisfying, inventive time-sink to snuggle up with.
Diablo 4
Endless entertainment
This amazing dungeon-crawler is painfully addictive and compelling, with a dark story to uncover.
- Grim story
- Dark, beautiful world
- So many builds to try
- Complex systems in post-game
Diablo 4 was a long, long time coming - but now it's here and it's got a gloriously dark world of twisted storylines and the omnipresent promise of better loot to keep you going through its impressive campaign and into the postgame.
With an always-online world that's full of activities and challenges to overcome even once you finish its story, this promises to be a game that lives for years to come, and we're loving it.
Resident Evil Village
For horror fans
A thrill-ride that we won't forget anytime soon, Village is a total joy to play through, with some major scares along the way.
- Great schlocky horror
- Good gunplay
- Looks sumptuous
- At times completely gross
The latest game in the Resident Evil series is an unhinged thing of beauty, with a story that's close to the point of being baffling but super-fun gameplay throughout its twists and turns.
Plus, it looks incredible on Microsoft's next-gen boxes, with ray tracing and high frame rates making for a beautiful, smoothg experience that will stay with you for ages.
Street Fighter 6
Total competition
The latest Street Fighter is something special, a fighting game that's come out ready-made for total success.
- Amazing fighting
- So much control
- Great roster
- World Tour is a slight drag
Another game that we had to wait years for, Street Fighter 6 delivers in spades with a roster of fighters that begs to be mastered and a World Tour mode that onboards new players as well as anything the series has ever offered.
The game looks and sounds sparkling, too, and its online modes are stable and fleshed-out, making for the best fighting game package on Xbox Series X/S right now.
Dead Space
Extreme horror
An incredible impressive update to a hugely popular game, Dead Space feels like a new benchmark for modern horror titles.
- Amazing atmosphere
- Such incredible sound and lighting
- Crunchy combat
- Remade so not totally new
Dead Space gets a remake right out of the top drawer, with incredible work done by EA's Motive Studios to ensure that the original game's spirit and structure is maintained while being expanded and polished to a modern sheen.
It looks and sounds simply amazing, with lighting that makes for simply incredible scenes as you make your way through the ruined USG Ishimura.
How to choose your next Xbox Series X or S game
If you're searching for a new game for your Xbox Series X or S, it won't take long for you to realise how many there are to pick from. Here are some questions to help you figure out what the best pick for you is.
Are you looking for something chill?
Some of the games on this list are pretty active and require a lot of attention and even some skill to do well, and while that's perfect for many of us, there are alternatives if you want something more laid back and relaxing. The likes of Forza Horizon 5 and Flight Simulator both let you cruise around under your own steam, exploring and seeing sights without needing to necessarily tick off loads of challenging objectives to have a good time.
Will you be playing with friends?
Of course, so many of us now enjoy playing games online with our mates that it's worth checking before you buy a game whether it's got an online component or mode that you can enjoy with your pals, whether that's in the form of co-op or competitive action.
Have you checked out Game Pass?
Perhaps the biggest factor when it comes to buying games for your Series X or Series S is Microsoft's own package - Xbox Game Pass. This membership gets you a huge library of games to play for a monthly cost, and some of the best games on the platform are included, like Starfield and Halo Infinite. While we still like owning our favourite games so we know we'll always have access to them, it's worth checking out Game Pass to try out the games on it.