The Best Single-Player Games to Play on Xbox
Hollow Knight Delivers a Deep Metroidvania Adventure
Exploring Hallownest
Hollow Knight metroidvania action platformer has resonated with gamers since its 2017 release. As a Knight traversing the ruined kingdom of Hallownest, players will discover a sprawling underground world with its own cultures, factions, and secrets around every corner. The hand-drawn art style brings the game’s deteriorating cities and creeping enemies to life. Players start out weak but can boost their abilities by finding new spells, platforms, and strikes to overcome obstacles and deadly foes.
Mastering Combat Challenges
While combat may seem simple at first with just a nail and few offerings, Hollow Knight expertly layers on new enemy types and attack patterns that force players to learn, adapt, and master timing. Later areas introduce mini-bosses and imposing giants that push learning curves. Those who survive long enough to reach the game’s true depths will be rewarded with epic boss fights against nightmarish beings guarding the deepest revelations of Hallownest’s mysteries.
Unfettered Exploration and Lore
Rather than waypoints or maps, players rely on detailed environment clues to navigate the branching paths. Optional challenges and hidden nooks around every corner unlock Hollow Knight environment exploration and story morsels for the dedicated. Piecing together Hallownest’s obscured past through scattered tablets and historical figures keeps the intrigue alive through dozens of hours.
Epic RPGs Offer Vast Fantasy Worlds
Getting Lost in Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim open world fantasy RPG allowed freedom like no other with its 2011 release. As the Last Dragonborn, players can choose to follow the main quest to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, or ignore it entirely to get lost crafting potions, joining factions, honing skills, and exploring ancient ruins. Skyrim’s varied northern landscapes like snowy peaks and pine forests come to life with atmospheric music and weather effects.
Mastery and Mystery in Monster Hunter
While Monster Hunter: World multiplayer co-op RPG presents a similar open nature, the focus shifts to the hunt. Players take contracts to track and fell towering beasts across diverse ecosystems. Mastering a weapon’s moveset, reading enemy patterns, and studying weakpoints becomes mandatory against beasts like Rathalos that can wipe whole parties. After felling targets, their parts are then crafted into powerful armor and weapons, creating an addictive gear progression loop. Solo players can still call upon AI or online companions when the going gets too tough.
Interconnected Stories in Dragon Age
The Dragon Age: Inquisition choice-driven fantasy RPG dumps players into the midst of a continent-spanning conflict as the newly appointed Inquisitor. From bustling Hinterlands villages to exotic deserts and sprawling underground Empires, every region tells its own tale driving the overarching narrative. Players can choose to resolve quests through diplomacy, stealth, or force as they recruit new followers, expand their stronghold, and slowly turn the tide. Impactful choices endure across multiple games, giving weight to each decision.
First-Person Shooters Push Adrenaline
Dancing with Demons in Doom
Id Software’s Doom Eternal first-person shooter cranks carnage to its highest levels yet. As the Doom Slayer, players tear through dimensions facing off against hell’s armies in a ballet of bullets, blood, and brutal glory kills. Fluid movement like dashing and wall-clinging allows dancing circles around foes, chaining attacks for relentless momentum. New weapons like the shoulder-mounted energy cannon and modular assault rifle offer fun new option.
Staying Alive in Aliens
Isolation puts survival above all else against the apex survivor, the alien. Set 15 years after Aliens, Alien: Isolation horror first-person survival drops Amanda Ripley alone on the Sevastopol space station to find out what happened to her mother. Limited supplies and no guns besides motion sensors leave stealth and avoidance as the only viable tactics. The alien’s behavior seems almost sentient as it learns and hunts based on the player’s own actions, keeping tension high.
Creative Chaos with Sunset Overdrive
While most shooters take themselves seriously, Sunset Overdrive third-person shooter embraces anarchic fun. In an outbreak apocalypse, players upgrade and combo an arsenal of explosive weapons, grind city infrastructure, and unleash specialized moves. Levels bustle with activity, from mall areas to carnival zones, providing engaging set pieces to rocket through. Over-the-top humor and stylistic retro vibes keep the action feeling fresh.
Story-Driven Games Give Purpose
Finding Truth in Hellblade
Set in 8th century Norse Britain, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice narrative-driven action adventure puts players in the sandals of a Pictish warrior seeking to rescue her dead lover from the depths of Helheim. Using her psychosis as a game mechanic, Senua hears voices and visions that could help or hinder her journey’s end. Performance capture and mental health consultant involvement make the protagonist’s deterioration into madness heart-wrenchingly authentic.
Profound Choices in Life is Strange
Released as episodic chapters, Life is Strange choice-driven narrative adventure follows Max Caulfield, a photography student who discovers she can rewind time. Investigating the mysterious disappearance of fellow student Chloe Price, players must weigh every word and action, as even small decisions can have severe and long-lasting consequences. Heavy topics like bullying, suicide, and discrimination give weight to moral dilemmas.
Exploring a Sci-Fi Mystery
The Quantum Break third-person shooter narrative drama blends time manipulation combat with live-action television scenes starring big-name actors like Shawn Ashmore. After a experiment goes awry, developer Jack Joyce finds he can now frozen time and warp the flow to alter firefights and puzzles. But larger forces are also manipulating the timestream, leaving clues to unravel a vast conspiracy. Different choices in the game can also change the show’s storyline.
Upcoming Hits with High Potential
A Dystopian Cyberpunk World
Few games in recent memory match the hype surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 open-world action RPG from The Witcher developers CD Projekt Red. Set in a dark vision of future Los Angeles upgraded with rampant body modification and advanced technology, players take the role of a gun-for-hire in a world of corporate power struggles. Promising deep character customization, impactful choices, branching questlines, and next-gen visuals, it could become a seminal work.
Returning to Raccoon City
The long-awaited remake of the Resident Evil 3 survival horror game adds modern visuals and gameplay to the panic-inducing sprints away from the unstoppable Nemesis creature. With rumors of expanded content beyond the original release, it may offer new terrors to unravel even for series veterans when it arrives in 2020. If it maintains the remade Resident Evil 2’s high polish, it will be required gaming.
Evolving Sequels to Anticipate
Established franchises like Gears of War, Halo Infinite, and upcoming chapters in Devil May Cry, Star Wars, and Assassin’s Creed continue refining their respective formulas. Each new entry ups the technical bar and expands lore, making them essential experiences to look forward to. With more innovative game studios pushing the envelope each year, the future of Xbox gaming looks bright indeed.