It's bright, it's colorful, it looks like a ridiculous amount of fun.

Baldur's Gate 3 manages to pull off the spontaneity and unpredictable nature of a long-stretching Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game. The story is intriguing with beautifully woven side quests but never feels like it's forcing you in a set moral direction. You can be as lawful good, or chaotically evil as you wish from scene to scene, and the game will be a different experience for each and every player. Character voice acting, motion capture, and a spellbinding soundtrack make the game world feel alive and the storytelling compelling. The only limit to your experience is your imagination and creativity, and while the sheer volume of possible outcomes can lead to bugs and occasional immersion-breaking moments, Larian has ultimately achieved its ambition for a generation-defining RPG.

Project Highrise is an excellent skyscraper-management game that challenges the player with deep strategy and rewards them with gigantic, gorgeous looking buildings. Additionally, since the game caters to casual players as well, Project Highrise can be fun for everyone, not just strategy fans.

Rain on Your Parade is a fun and worthwhile title. It's a cheeky indie that pokes fun at video game classics while providing quite a few laughs. With a simple premise, silly characters, and a very low price, it is time well spent ruining everyone's day.

Miyazaki and company have delivered a fantasy epic that viciously scrapes and claws its way into the pantheon of unforgettably important video games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Elden Ring is FromSoftware's most remarkable work so far and stands confidently as one of the greatest RPGs of all time.

With its near-flawless design, Insane Robots is one of the best indie titles of this generation without a doubt.

RimWorld has become a lauded classic on PC, and with the Xbox port, Double Eleven delivers a master class in how to bring games designed for mouse and keyboard intuitively to console. RimWorld is an utterly brutal survival sim where cutesy simplistic graphics belies endless depth, and you get procedural drama on a scale I have never before experienced in video game form. This game is a masterpiece, and RimWorld for Xbox faithfully shepherds the budding franchise to a brand new audience.

I had high expectations for Resident Evil 2, and Capcom delivered. This is the best horror game on Xbox One today, and one of its best single-player experiences in general.

I've spent roughly fifty hours with the game, and there's still so much to do. Sekiro is a captivating experience given its setting and lore. There are so many mysteries to uncover, and I can't wait to play it even more...It's definitely harder than Dark Souls, but the sense of satisfaction you feel after defeating powerful titans is a reward in itself. The more you play, the stronger you become.

Paradise Killer's non-linear focus, cast of intriguing characters, deep investigation mechanics, and vaporwave presentation make it one of the best whodunnits in recent memory.

Kunai bears the classic signs of a metroidvania with a ninja, retro-futuristic flair. Find upgrades and secret treasure stashes, fight robots, and well-designed bosses, all while having a ton of fun doing so.

Prey might not be the prettiest game, but it's among the most atmospheric. Arkane Studios has proven itself time and time again to be comprised of world-class world builders. Prey is no different. If you're a fan of Dead Space, Deus Ex, or Bioshock, you simply have to buy this game.

Persona 3 Reload has an emotionally gripping tale that will pull on your heartstrings and a cast of complex heroes you will love and villains you will love to hate. In addition, the original Persona 3’s turn-based combat system and dungeon crawling have been massively enhanced in the remake to be faster paced and has new mechanics to make them more engaging. After the credits rolled, I was in awe of how much Persona 3 Reload improved the best aspects of Persona 3 while getting rid of aspects which held the original version back. The story was more captivating thanks to the improved writing and new scenes and the characters were more endearing. Also, the combat system and dungeon crawling were faster paced and more fun to play.While the difficulty isn’t as challenging as the original Persona 3, that didn’t stop me from having a blast playing this game. Persona 3 Reload is one of the best remakes of a game I’ve played since Capcom’s Resident Evil remakes and one of the best Xbox games I’ve played thus far in 2024 that both Persona fans and JRPG fans should not miss out on.

You already know God of War is hailed as a masterpiece, with top-shelf acting and writing, next-level art direction, and varied and satisfying combat. A question emerges of any console to PC port: Is it faithful to the platform? That answer is a resounding yes.

Gears of War 4 just feels great. It feels like the return of an old friend, and The Coalition masterfully weave that nostalgia into the game without smothering us in it exploitatively — which is something they very easily could have done. Gears of War 4's greatest moments can be found in between the lines. They're in the shadows of familiar silhouettes, in the tones of nostalgic sound effects, in every COG tag you find scattered around the battlefield, and every ridiculous, over-the-top set piece.

Little Nightmares II builds on its predecessor as a sequel should, expanding the scope of the universe both in terms of lore and mechanics. Little Nightmares II is one of 2021's first must-play titles.

The masterful art direction, polished and responsive physics, and blisteringly intuitive gameplay design elevated Inside far, far beyond my expectations – which were already pretty high. Inside is a masterpiece.

Keeper isn't likely to become Xbox's next mainstream hit, but it is a marvelous achievement in art direction, game design, and unspoken storytelling. Keeper is the result of giving a passionate, highly creative team the time and resources they need to create their masterpiece, and it begs to be played with as little knowledge as possible going in.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a polished, well-designed RPG, and through its phenomenal mechanics, astounding art, sound design and fantastic writing, it is sure to revolutionize the modern RPG genre.

Gorogoa is the perfect mix of story, gameplay, and aesthetic that all come together in order to form a truly beautiful experience. Between the simple but charming narrative, the creative and satisfying puzzle design, and the breathtaking hand-drawn artwork, Gorogoa is a wonderful puzzle game that will amaze all who choose to play it.

Everything is absolutely fantastic, and while in-game performance isn't perfect, it's hardly enough of a downside to affect my view of the game overall. Avalanche has truly brought the thunder.

Everything you remember and love about Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rickality with a massive host of new puzzles and experiences.

Lone Echo II is a pristine example of how a sequel can be better than the original in every way. More mature and varied gameplay elements, impressive graphics, and a story that wouldn't feel out of the place in a novel make this the must-have swan song of the Rift platform.

A rewarding and addictive sim that must not be missed.

A groundbreaking experience that makes the world of Half-Life more tangible than you could imagine.

An epic soundtrack, top-tier voice acting, gorgeous artwork and locales, frenetic but balanced action, and an addictive roguelike progression system and surprisingly deep build system come together to make Hades the indie game you should be playing if you have a PC.

With DOOM: The Dark Ages, id Software proves it can still reinvent the wheel, shaking up numerous aspects of gameplay, exchanging elaborate platforming for brutal on-the-ground action, as well as the ability to soar on a dragon's back or stomp around in a giant mech. The story is silly, but it fits the over-the-top tone of the Slayer's war against demons. It's still just as fun to rip and tear as it always has been.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe expertly expands the original critically acclaimed narrative adventure with hours of brilliantly written new content and a lot more of Kevan Brighting's incredible narration. Even if you played the original, you shouldn't miss this updated version.