Xbox is in something of a weird place, as Microsoft is increasingly focused on broadening its definition of what an Xbox is. So when it comes to naming the best console exclusives on Xbox, even coming up with five we’d strongly recommend became a challenge.
As such, what you’ll find below are our picks for the four best Xbox games of 2025 that you won’t find on any other console. Exclusivity, unless you’re Nintendo, is an increasingly rare thing in the modern gaming world, but you can rest assured this small handful represents a diverse range of quality experiences.
If you’re less concerned with exclusivity, check out our picks for the 10 best games of the year (many of which are available on Xbox Series X|S) and our 2025 Game of the Year (also on Xbox–and Game Pass, as of the time of this writing). For a wider range of games, you can refer to our running list of the best Xbox games to play right now and the best games on Game Pass.
South of Midnight
South of Midnight has perhaps the strongest sound design of any game this year, with developer Compulsion Games blending the recorded ambience of the American Deep South with a beautiful orchestral score, stellar vocal performances, and an album of deeply moving lyrical music to create a wonderful, unapologetic love letter for a setting too often overlooked in mainstream video games.
The mythology and superstitions of the region–the Rougarou, Two-Toed Tom, and others–are realized in intriguingly gothic tales and entertaining boss battles, several of which grow in spectacle and complexity in time with the swell of their musical theme to create half-a-dozen memorable crescendos of storytelling in one young woman’s quest to rescue their mother. And that heroine, Hazel, is a force of a protagonist, navigating legends of grief, rage, and fear with an entertaining spunk and appreciated deference.
The narrative-driven moments in South of Midnight more than make up for the game’s shortcomings. Much like games like Psychonauts 2 or Alice: Madness Returns, South of Midnight is a celebration of story, character-writing, world design, and immaculate vibes. South of Midnight is easily one of the best Xbox console exclusives of 2025. — Jordan Ramée
Keeper
Double Fine’s latest game is unlike anything the studio has made before, while at the same time being a culmination of its unique artistry and personality. Keeper is a game about a sentient lighthouse that spontaneously grows legs and starts a mysterious, soulful journey toward a distant mountaintop, with the help of a bird that it saved from a swarm of sinister insects. And that’s like the fifth-strangest thing about it.
As you traverse the world and solve simple puzzles, the wordless game reinvents itself multiple times across its short playtime, reinforcing a narrative about evolving and change. The world is a well-realized sci-fi dystopia, a world filled to the brim with garbage and crawling with strange creatures who have found ways to survive in this ruined land. The camera is tightly controlled, with a painterly style, making nearly every frame look like it could be hung in an art gallery.
Keeper is unlike anything else you’ve ever experienced, and it’s really best to simply experience it for yourself. Double Fine has made lots of great games, but Keeper is the one where its confident artistry shines through the brightest, and it makes us eager to see what’s coming next. — Steve Watts
Avowed
With games such as Kingdom Come Deliverance II and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 continuing to push RPGs in innovative and interesting directions, it can be hard to look toward games in the genre that follow more tried-and-true formulas, wondering if they can provide anything fresh. However, with Avowed, Obsidian Entertainment was able to take its wellworn recipe for an RPG, concoct it with some of the highest quality ingredients, sprinkle in a handful of new ones, and prepare one of the most satisfying entries in the genre this year.
Whether it’s the game’s diverse, beautifully rendered biomes, impactful quests, or highly engaging combat, Avowed smartly refines the Obsidian experience players are familiar with, while injecting it with the fantastic storytelling and lore of its Pillars of Eternity series. It’s a game that feels confident in its foundation, with a world that successfully walks the tight rope of being big enough to feel rich but not so big that it exhausts the player. That world is a delight to play in, as the studio took the effort to make its traversal and combat feel fluid and fun, thrusting the player through its story from encounter to encounter. It’s one of the best RPGs of the year and one of the best experiences you can have on Xbox in 2025. — Tom Caswell
Grounded 2
My favorite thing about the original Grounded when it first debuted was how it took a genre that is normally very dire and made it a much lighter, sillier affair. Grounded imbued the survival-crafting genre with the heart of a child, and Grounded 2 succeeds in doubling down on that strength. In Obsidian’s sequel, you move from the backyard to the park, which greatly alters the locations, sights, and sounds you’ll experience on your adventure as a suddenly shrunken teen fighting through a world of dangerous insects.
Picnic tables become mountains to climb; water fountains become dangerous ponds; an overturned ice cream stand becomes an unforgiving tundra. Simply surviving a trek that would take a normal-sized human a few unremarkable seconds is a much harsher, deadlier affair, as bugs new and old–including the terrifying praying mantis–populate the park’s regions. Still, through it all, there’s a child-like spirit at its heart. Vibrant colors pop off the screen, the characters themselves express funny, sometimes slightly edgy things, as they’re now at an age where they’re testing what curse words they can get away with as pre-teens. It feels like they’ve grown up before the players’ eyes, still silly, but more equipped to get messy and muddy as they scrap with the bugs.
The best of these new features is the buggy vehicle, which can be made from one of several different bugs. This both cuts down on travel time immensely and improves your survivability. Some of them, like the Red Ant Buggy, even help with crafting and item collection. It’s the sort of major change a sequel is expected to offer, and in this case, it leaves the early-access sequel seeming destined to surpass its predecessor by the time 1.0 arrives. — Mark Delaney
