13 Best Xbox Exclusive Games and Former Exclusives

The best Microsoft-published games at a glance

• Best open-world racing game: Forza Horizon 5
• Best collection for shooter campaigns: Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Best cooperative third-person shooter: Gears 5
• Best aviation simulation: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
• Best first-person adventure: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Best rhythm-action game: Hi-Fi RUSH
• Best fantasy RPG: Avowed
• Best cooperative survival game: Grounded 2, currently in Early Access

What counts as a Microsoft exclusive now?

In the strictest sense, an exclusive is unavailable on competing console families. That definition no longer fits every game historically associated with Microsoft. Several entries below began as console exclusives or were promoted as major Microsoft releases before expanding elsewhere.

The common thread is stronger and more useful: these games come from Microsoft-owned studios, Microsoft publishing relationships, or franchises closely tied to the platform’s identity. Most are also available on PC, so “Microsoft game” should not automatically be read as “console-only game.”

1. Forza Horizon 5

Best for open-world driving

Forza Horizon 5 turns a varied interpretation of Mexico into a huge driving playground. Roads connect cities, deserts, jungles, beaches, canyons, and a volcano, but structured races are only one part of the experience. Players can explore freely, chase challenges, build custom events, tune vehicles, or join online activities.

Its greatest strength is flexibility. The handling is approachable enough for casual driving while still offering assists, tuning options, weather changes, and surfaces that reward learning. EventLab adds a creative layer by letting players build custom races and unusual challenges.

It is no longer a strict console exclusive, so it belongs here as a Microsoft-published flagship rather than a game unavailable elsewhere.

Choose it if: you want a generous racing sandbox that supports solo exploration and online competition without forcing either style.

2. Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Best for classic science-fiction campaigns

Halo: The Master Chief Collection gathers six Halo games into one integrated package. That breadth makes it both a history lesson and an unusually substantial starting point for players who missed the series.

The collection moves from the spacious combat arenas of the earlier campaigns to later games with expanded equipment, storytelling, and multiplayer systems. Cooperative campaign support gives several entries a different rhythm, while competitive modes preserve a wide range of classic maps and rules.

The individual games do not all feel equally modern, and newcomers should expect design conventions to change across the collection. That contrast is part of its value: it shows how Halo’s combat language evolved while retaining its emphasis on readable encounters, shields, grenades, vehicles, and flexible weapons.

Choose it if: you want the broadest introduction to Microsoft’s defining shooter series.

3. Gears 5

Best for cover-based action and co-op

Gears 5 combines a cinematic campaign with aggressive third-person combat built around cover, flanking, heavy weapons, and close-range pressure. Kait Diaz leads the story as she investigates her connection to the enemy threatening Sera.

The campaign introduces larger areas between its more directed combat sequences, but the core appeal remains precise arena design and the satisfying weight of movement and weapons. Cooperative play strengthens that structure because players can coordinate targets, reposition together, and recover from risky pushes.

Beyond the campaign, Horde offers escalating defensive battles, while Escape focuses on shorter cooperative runs through hostile territory. Split-screen support also makes it more flexible than many modern shooters.

Choose it if: you want a muscular third-person shooter with campaign co-op and substantial replayable modes.

4. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Best for aviation and world exploration

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is less about finishing a conventional campaign and more about building aviation knowledge. It combines a global environment, a broad aircraft fleet, changing conditions, and a career structure that gives flights clearer goals.

Players can approach it on different levels. Assistance features help newcomers handle basic flight, while deeper systems let enthusiasts engage with procedures, navigation, aircraft behavior, and carefully planned routes. Career activities bring purpose to the simulation without eliminating the freedom to choose an aircraft and travel.

Its technical and control demands make it a more specialized recommendation than the action games on this list. However, no other game on this list offers the same combination of scale, aviation variety, and open-ended exploration.

Choose it if: operating aircraft and exploring the world sounds more appealing than chasing a traditional story.

5. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Best for exploration, stealth, and puzzles

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a first-person adventure built around investigation rather than uninterrupted shooting. Its 1937 story sends Indiana Jones across multiple locations while he searches for the secret behind the Great Circle.

The first-person perspective makes examining spaces, solving environmental puzzles, sneaking past guards, and using the whip feel immediate. Combat is present, but avoiding a fight or improvising with the environment often suits the character better than treating every room like a shooting gallery.

This is another former console-exclusive talking point rather than a permanent exclusive. Its place on the list comes from its importance to Microsoft’s modern publishing catalogue and its distinctive adventure design.

Choose it if: you want a story-led adventure that values observation and exploration alongside action.

6. Hi-Fi RUSH

Best for rhythm-based combat

Hi-Fi RUSH synchronizes its world, animation, enemy attacks, and combat opportunities to music. Chai can attack at any time, so the game does not lock progress behind perfect rhythm performance, but matching the beat improves combos and makes battles flow more cleanly.

The result is a character-action game with unusually clear timing. Visual cues help communicate the rhythm, companions expand attack options, and boss fights use music to shape their pacing. Its colorful presentation and playful cast prevent the scoring systems from making the experience feel overly severe.

Hi-Fi RUSH is no longer a strict console exclusive, and its publisher is now KRAFTON. It still represents one of the most creative releases to emerge from Microsoft’s recent studio era.

Choose it if: you like expressive combat, music, and replaying encounters to improve execution.

7. Avowed

Best for first-person fantasy role-playing

Avowed brings the world of Eora into a first-person RPG centered on exploration, companions, dialogue, magic, and weapon-based combat. The Living Lands are divided into substantial regions rather than presented as one seamless map, which gives individual areas a stronger identity and denser quest structure.

Combat supports different combinations of swords, shields, ranged weapons, spells, and abilities. The more important distinction is how character choices, alliances, and rivalries shape the journey. Familiarity with Pillars of Eternity adds context, but it is not required to understand the central conflict.

Choose it if: you want an accessible fantasy RPG with companion relationships and a more focused structure than a giant open-world checklist.

8. Grounded 2

Best for cooperative survival crafting

Grounded 2 returns to the miniature survival premise with a larger playground, base building, crafting, dangerous insects, and rideable creatures called Buggies. It supports solo play, but gathering materials and dealing with threats become especially engaging when responsibilities are shared in co-op.

The tiny perspective gives familiar objects a useful sense of scale. Grass becomes construction material, everyday spaces become biomes, and insects can function as wildlife, resources, transport, or major threats. Equipment choices also help players lean toward different combat roles.

Grounded 2 is in Early Access, so it should be approached as an evolving game rather than a finished campaign. Features, balance, content, and performance can continue to change before the full release.

Choose it if: your group enjoys crafting, exploration, shared bases, and survival systems that feel playful without being trivial.

9. State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition

Best for community-based zombie survival

State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition treats a zombie outbreak as a long-term management problem. Players recruit survivors, secure resources, choose a base, build facilities, and decide which risks the community can afford.

Controlling different survivors gives injuries and permanent loss more weight. A failed supply run can remove a useful community member rather than merely trigger a reload. The game’s open maps also encourage balancing immediate scavenging needs against infestations, transport, morale, and base development.

Co-op lets friends assist, but the host’s community remains the center of the session. It works best for players who enjoy repeated survival decisions more than a tightly authored linear narrative.

Choose it if: you want zombie action where base management and survivor loss matter as much as combat.

10. Quantum Break

Best for cinematic science-fiction action

Quantum Break blends a third-person shooter with time-manipulation powers and live-action episodes. Jack Joyce gains abilities after a failed experiment, allowing him to freeze threats, move rapidly through combat, create defensive effects, and exploit unstable environments.

Its structure is unusual because decisions influence parts of the accompanying show. That experiment will not suit everyone, but it gives the game a distinct identity among story-led shooters. Remedy’s interest in cinematic staging, environmental storytelling, and supernatural combat is visible throughout.

Choose it if: you enjoy compact, narrative-focused action games and do not mind pausing gameplay for longer cinematic episodes.

11. Starfield

Best for a large science-fiction RPG

Starfield is a single-player role-playing game about joining Constellation and exploring a settled region of space. Character creation, faction quests, ship construction, crew recruitment, outpost systems, and first-person combat provide several ways to shape a playthrough.

Its scale is both the attraction and the trade-off. Players who enjoy wandering, collecting equipment, modifying ships, and following faction stories can spend a long time defining their own priorities. Those seeking one continuous handcrafted world may find its planet-to-planet structure less cohesive.

Choose it if: you want a broad science-fiction sandbox with role-playing systems, ship customization, and many optional quest lines.

12. Pillars of Eternity

Best for a classic party-based CRPG

Pillars of Eternity is the most traditional computer RPG on this list. It uses an isometric perspective, party management, real-time combat with pause, extensive dialogue, and a fantasy setting built around souls, memory, faith, and political conflict.

Creating a balanced party matters because characters fill different defensive, offensive, control, and support roles. Pausing combat allows players to issue precise orders, reposition companions, and respond to dangerous abilities. The writing and world-building demand more reading than the first-person RPGs in this guide.

It is included as a Microsoft-published game and as the foundation of the world later revisited by Avowed, not as a current console-exclusive showcase.

Choose it if: you value dense lore, tactical party combat, and dialogue-heavy role-playing.

13. Psychonauts

Best classic creative platformer

Psychonauts follows Razputin, a young psychic who enters other characters’ minds. Each mental world can change its visual language, platforming rules, enemies, and puzzles to reflect the person it represents.

The original game shows its age in places, particularly in camera and movement behavior, but its central idea remains inventive. Psychic powers provide combat and exploration tools, while the writing balances comedy with stories about insecurity, memory, and perception.

This is the oldest game in the ranking and not a modern technical showcase. It earns its position because its imaginative level concepts remain unlike almost anything else in Microsoft’s catalogue.

Choose it if: creative settings and character-driven comedy matter more to you than modern polish.

How we picked them

We looked for PC games we price that were published by Microsoft’s studios or built their reputation on Microsoft’s console, and kept the ones with strong Steam user reviews. The list mixes racing, shooters, simulation, role-playing, survival and platforming, so it is not thirteen variations on one genre.

Which of these games should you start with?

Start with Forza Horizon 5 if you want immediate freedom and low-pressure exploration. Choose Halo: The Master Chief Collection for the broadest tour of Microsoft’s console history, or Gears 5 if campaign co-op is the priority.

For role-playing, Avowed is the most approachable fantasy choice, Starfield offers the largest science-fiction sandbox, and Pillars of Eternity provides the deepest traditional party systems. Grounded 2 is the strongest survival-crafting option for a regular co-op group, provided everyone is comfortable joining an Early Access game.