The Best Xbox Games of 2021

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – January 4, 2022

Which Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One games impressed professional reviewers the most during the past year? We rank the best-reviewed titles released between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 by Metascore. Games must have at least 7 reviews from professional critics to be eligible for inclusion. If a game appears on both Xbox platforms, only the version receiving the higher quantity of critic reviews (typically the Xbox Series X/S version) is eligible for inclusion. (All scores listed here are from January 2, 2022.)

4 of 14 photo by IO Interactive

87 Hitman 3 (Xbox Series X/S)

(#10) Released early in 2021 for virtually every platform, the latest in the third-person stealth series concludes the "World of Assassination" reboot trilogy that began with 2016's Hitman. This time, your playable assassin Agent 47 heads to a variety of new locations including Berlin, Dubai, and Chongqing, though all locations from the previous two games can also be played within the new game. Critics love the game's flexibility, replayability, and satisfying storytelling.

“Hitman 3 is a fantastic capstone to a standout series. Yes, a lot of what you experience will seem familiar if you’ve played the last two games, but IO Interactive continues to take interesting risks that largely play off while still perfecting the elements that make Hitman so special. The best compliment I can pay Hitman 3 is that I want to finish writing this review so I can go back to playing it.” —EGM

Where To Buy