The best Xbox games are sorted here by genre and by the kind of evening they suit. Which titles made the cut is an editorial call, since Microsoft keeps no official ranking. That’s also why the list leaves out Palworld on Xbox and PS5, even though it’s part of Game Pass. Everything else in the table, though, is copied straight from the Xbox catalog as of 11 September 2026: which generation the game runs on, which Game Pass tier it’s in, and whether Microsoft shows a list of supported languages for it.
Quick overview
| Game | Genre | Generation listed by Microsoft | Lowest Game Pass tier | Language list in catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana Jones and the Great Circle | action adventure | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | turn-based RPG | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Kingdom Come: Deliverance II | RPG | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Starfield | RPG | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| South of Midnight | action adventure | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 | action | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| DOOM: The Dark Ages | shooter | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Gears of War: Reloaded | shooter | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Hi-Fi RUSH | rhythm action | Series X|S only | Premium | listed |
| Halo: The Master Chief Collection | shooter | Xbox One and Series X|S | Premium | not listed |
| Forza Horizon 5 | racing | Xbox One and Series X|S | Premium | not listed |
| Minecraft | sandbox | Xbox One and Series X|S | Premium | listed |
| It Takes Two | co-op adventure | Xbox One and Series X|S | Ultimate | not listed |
| TUNIC | action adventure | Xbox One and Series X|S | Essential | listed |
| Hollow Knight: Silksong | metroidvania | Xbox One and Series X|S | Premium | listed |
| Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition | strategy | Xbox One and Series X|S | Premium | listed |
The genre is our own classification; the rest of each row comes from the Xbox catalog as of 11 September 2026. Tier means the lowest subscription the game was in on that day; it’s in the higher ones too, because the content stacks. “Not listed” in the language column means the catalog entry has no language list at all, not that language support is missing. The catalog also changes every month, so the table is a snapshot of a single day.
Big story games that last for weeks
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle isn’t a shooter with a whip, it’s an adventure full of puzzles where fighting is the last resort. Microsoft lists it for Series X|S only.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 takes turn-based combat, adds real-time reactions and turns it into something that’s fun even for people who don’t like turn-based games.
Starfield is the opposite extreme: a huge game you have to sink dozens of hours into before it starts to make sense. If you want a story for two evenings, start somewhere else.
South of Midnight is the shortest game in this group and the most striking visually, and it’s one of the few big games in the catalog for which Microsoft lists even a smaller language like Czech.
Language support in Game Pass is uneven, so check it first
On 11 September 2026 the console Game Pass catalog had 622 games, and the language coverage varies a lot from title to title. Smaller languages in particular are rare: Microsoft lists Czech for only 25 of those games, roughly one in twenty-five. It pays to check the language list in advance rather than assume.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is the most obvious case of a game where language matters: a Czech game with Czech voice acting and a setting Czech players know from their history lessons at school. Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition is the second case where the language you play in changes the gameplay and not just the menus, because strategy games rely on the text in unit tooltips and in the campaign. And TUNIC is a joke in itself, because its manual is written in an invented script that no translation will help with. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Minecraft round out the games from this selection that list Czech.
Shooters that take you back in time
DOOM: The Dark Ages is slower and heavier than you’d expect if DOOM Eternal is still stuck in your head. The combat is more like fencing than dancing.
Gears of War: Reloaded makes the most sense for someone who has never played the series, because it starts exactly where it should.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection gives you the most hours per library item of anything in this selection, and Microsoft lists split-screen play for it too. It also runs on the older generation, so it’s a good fit if you’re wondering whether an Xbox One still makes sense today.
Two players on one couch
It Takes Two is the safest pick for two people on one console. Microsoft lists shared split-screen for it, and the game can’t be played without a second player at all. It’s in the catalog through Ultimate, because it belongs to EA Play, which comes with that tier. What each tier includes is broken down in our overview of Game Pass tiers.
Minecraft has split-screen as well, and compared with It Takes Two it lasts for years instead of one weekend. It’s also the only game on the list that Microsoft doesn’t offer for cloud streaming, so you have to download it.
Shorter games when you don’t want to start another saga
Hi-Fi RUSH can be finished in a weekend and everything in it moves to the beat of the music, so you learn combat differently than in the rest of the genre. TUNIC looks like a cute little game, but it’s really about learning rules nobody explains to you. Hollow Knight: Silksong is the toughest of the three and, at the same time, the easiest way to find out whether metroidvanias are for you, because it’s in the subscription and runs on the older console too.
Racing and strategy
Forza Horizon 5 is still the best first racing game on Xbox, because it needs no wheel and no practice, and it drives well on a controller. Microsoft lists it for both Xbox One and Series X|S, which is getting rarer and rarer for games of this size.
Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition solved the biggest problem of strategy games on console, which is the controls. It plays surprisingly well on a controller, and the campaign works as a documentary too.
What’s not in Game Pass and has to be bought
Three games people reach for most often were not in the console Game Pass catalog as of 11 September 2026. Microsoft lists Elden Ring and Red Dead Redemption 2 in the store for Xbox One and Series X|S, and Baldur’s Gate 3 for Series X|S only. Purchased games come with a two-hour playtime limit for refunds, which is covered in the guide on how to refund a game on Xbox.
How to check availability yourself
The catalog on xbox.com has three filters that matter more often than reviews do.
- Subscriptions shows which tier a game is in. Between Essential and Ultimate there’s a difference of hundreds of titles.
- Play on shows the generation and device: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, handheld and cloud. For games you can’t download, there’s Xbox Cloud Gaming.
- Leaving soon shows games that will leave the library in the next two weeks. Microsoft gives no longer notice than that, so it’s worth going through once a month, as recommended in our piece on what’s in Game Pass and how to keep track of it.
Who this list won’t help
If you play one game over and over, you need neither a list nor a subscription. Ten evenings in Forza or Minecraft give you more than ten half-finished story games. Whether the subscription is worth it for you specifically is worked out in is Game Pass worth it.
If you’re still choosing a console, start with the question of what you want to play, not with the model. Microsoft lists nine games from this list for Series X|S only, so the choice between Series X and Series S is about performance and the disc drive, not about whether the games will run.
FAQ
If it has to be one name, then Halo: The Master Chief Collection, because it packs the whole series into one item and runs on the older console too. If you want something newer, go for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Both were in Game Pass as of 11 September 2026.
Look at the language list on the game’s store page. Coverage varies a lot: in the console Game Pass catalog, Microsoft listed Czech for only 25 of 622 games as of 11 September 2026. Some items in this selection, such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Forza Horizon 5 and It Takes Two, have no language list in the catalog at all.
Some of them do. Of the sixteen games in the table, Microsoft lists seven for Xbox One, the rest for Series X|S only. For the older console you can tell by the Play on filter, where Xbox One is a separate option. What you can play on it from older generations is covered in u003ca href=u0022/zpetna-kompatibilita-xbox/u0022u003eXbox backward compatibilityu003c/au003e.
From the subscription itself, yes, and you won’t be able to keep playing it. Microsoft groups departing titles in the Leaving soon section two weeks in advance and offers subscribers to Ultimate, the console plan and PC Game Pass a discount of up to 20% if they buy them. The Essential and Premium tiers don’t get this discount.
For paid games, yes, and all three Game Pass tiers include online multiplayer on console. Free-to-play games like Fortnite haven’t needed it at all on Xbox since April 2021. How Xbox Live Gold turned into today’s Essential tier is explained in u003ca href=u0022/xbox-live-gold/u0022u003ewhat happened to Xbox Live Goldu003c/au003e.
Generations, tiers and languages change with every store edition of a game, so check them again for the specific item before you download. How quickly you can switch between two games in progress is explained in our piece on Quick Resume, and a pick from an even older generation is in the overview of the best Xbox 360 games. More tests and guides are in the Xbox section on Gamers Together. Information verified as of 6 August 2026.
Thumbnail photo: Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0.