2023 Has Already Treated Us To Multiple GOTY Candidates On Xbox

When you take into account the Xbox Tax on review sites Hi-Fi rush is the GOTY contender by a country mile.

Still can't get over how good hi-fi rush was. Loved it. I'd take out games such as persona 3/4, age of empires, monster hunter rise as far as awards go, not the acclaim, since they are just re-releases of games that came out before ... just on different hardware. Dead Space is questionable because although its classified as a remake is it VERY similar to the original. Hi-Fi and Hogwarts are shoe-in for GOTY contenders imo, however.

So far its Hogwarts Legacy with a doubt.

Usually GOTY is either whatever exclusive Sony releases or a game from FromSoftware (in years when these happen), a Rockstar game could also be it when it releases. My favourite was 2018 between RDR2 and GoW 2018.
But this year I am sure StarField will be competing and also RedFall because Arkane games are always loved by critics. If Hellblade 2 releases it should also have a chance.

I guarantee the only thing that can dethrone Hi-Fi Rush for me is Silksong.

It’s games like these that remind me why I fell in love with games in the first place, after getting worn down with all these propped up AAA self important slog fests. Hope Xbox keeps leaning into these kinds of games.

I'm loving Dead Space. Haven't played Hi-Fi Rush or Hogwart's Legacy yet.

@Sakisa touché, games used to be just "games" back then, now it needs to be a technical marvel or push the medium usually.

For me the year already started out great with Marvels midnight suns. It's from the end of last year but got it for Christmas. That game surprised me. Not a card game or strategy fan normally, but that game was so much fun. Then out of nowhere cam the brilliant Hifi Rush. Also a game type I normally don't like but they nailed that game. Even someone without rhythm can finish that game. And it's so much fun.

And now I'm playing the amazing Hogwarts. Not a Harry Potter fan, but this game had such a beautiful and detailed world. A great magical fantasy rpg. And next Friday will be pre order day for Like a Dragon Ishin. My most anticipated game of the year even.

Only game I played that I didn't like this year is One piece odyssey. I paused it cause it just didn't click for me. But that might also be since I never watched the anime.
But overal such a great start

I still wana try dead space but ima too ascared 😳

hogwarts wins 0 awards guaranteed.

Rise surely cant be goty.

hifi in with a shout. but wont win. Redfall on list too, with FF16

between Zelda/Starfield/SM2 imo.

one thing for sure MS will have more presence

As a One Piece diehard myself, even I don’t consider Odyssey a GOTY candidate. It’s a great game, but with many flaws

@pip_muzz True, Xbox doesn't get the extra points that Nintendo and Sony get.

I think that this will finally be the year this generation hits its stride. Up until now most games have been multi-generation and just improved game engines on last generation. I expect us to finally see some real new games that truly could not be done on the previous consoles.

You can’t call GOTY in February!!! Some saying Starfield, how on earth can ya know? It might be a right bag of *****, we’ve seen very little. I hope it lives up to the hype but no one has a clue. The only game that is not yet released that is pretty much guaranteed to be a contender is Spiderman 2. We all know that will be epic.

Personally I was kinda dissapointed with Monster Hunter Rise if I was honest. Gave it a good go but came away underwhelmed after World.

A little unfair to Hogwarts Legacy that just came out today if you didn't get the Deluxe Edition and still second place? I call that a victory.

Age of Empires 2 definitive edition isn’t going to be on any GOTY lists but will be on my list for game I will have sunk the most hours into.
I think Microsoft has a much better chance of having potential GOTY contenders. I think not depending on a new Gears or Halo game cycle is the difference. Not sure why MS are wanting to plow billions into the Activision deal when already we have Redfall, Hi Fi Rush and Stargate in the first half of the year from the Bethesda deal before it, now that was money well spent.

@Banjo- I disagree , halo infinite is a great example of a very mediocre game getting glowing reviews because it's Xbox & halo

@Sakisa Couldn't agree more!

I'm currently switching between Dead Space and Hogwarts Legacy. I usually stick to one game, but since these two are so different it makes a combo, and minimal "muscle memory" errors due to different button inputs.

Quick resume is a god send when doing this.

Spider-Man 2 will be good but if I were to put up Hi-Fi Rush against the first game, Hi-Fi Rush wins. It’s that breath of fresh air gaming needed. Can’t see Spider-Man 2 pushing any boundaries (other than amazing graphics, of course).

@Would_you_kindly Yeah, like you would come to Pure Xbox for not defending Sony or for praising Xbox...

@Moonglow LOL I find no flaws with your logic.

Honestly, we all know it's never inventive games that win, and very rarely games that are only on one system. But.. if I have to put money on any game taking it this year (and it isn't our yet) and that is Zelda. Games like Spiderman will never win, neither with Hi-Fi or Hogwarts. Starfield might stand a good chance (if it delivers) but I still think Zelda will take the gong.

Just finished Hi-Fi Rush a few hours ago. It's a decent game. I've seen that the game is getting a lot of love by the xbox community. Yet I was looking the achievements and only 8% of the players have actually finished it? Very low completion rate for a game that is "goty quality" and one of the "best xbox Exclusives".

@Banjo- you're the one saying Nintendo & playstation games get higher praise than they deserve , I gave you an example of an Xbox game that got inflated review scores

@Would_you_kindly No, it's not just me but you replied to me. So have you played the game? Why are the Halo reviews "inflated" in your sincere and unbiased opinion? Can you explain why Halo Infinite is "very mediocre"?

@Chaudy Cause it's on game pass. People try it and that counts towards how many have played it.

Well so far this year for me would be HiFi Rush and Metroid Prime Remaster.

HFR for the unique combat, fantastic art and music. MP is 20 years old but is one of the best adventure games of all time.

@Banjo- the campaign was very generic & copy paste environments not what you'd expect from the budget they used , the multiplayer was bare bones & unfinished , the graphics are almost Xbox 360 era , forge & online co-op didn't come until a year later & local multiplayer was cancelled after they promised it would be in the game....

You forgot SpongeBob Cosmic Shake and Raiden IV x Mikado in this list.

My only goty contender from this list is Dead Space, this game is perfect.
About Hi-Fi Rush: I think this game gets a little bit overrated.
No question, the art style rocks. And this game kinda reminds me about Viewtiful Joe, the idea is awesome.
But the gameplay wares off pretty fast I think. I would give it 80% max so far.

Actually if you go by Open Critic, which has more reviews and what I prefer over Metacritic, Hi-Fi Rush is rated highest at 90. Dead Space 89. Hogwarts 85.

@northofthewall but it’ll be huge!!! We all know the Spiderman games are epic. Venom will draw more fans. I’m not saying it’ll win but on current knowledge it has a bigger chance than Starfirld.

@Sebatrox that’s your opinion, a very rare opinion. Biggest selling PS exclusive ever!! Spiderman an Miles sold over 35 million copies!!

@Moonglow we already had 2 Spiderman games. We already know how good they were. This one will be better, PS5 exclusive for starters. We know nothing about Starfield.

I thought HiFi Rush was pretty good until the parry mechanic was introduced and you were forced to use it to beat certain enemies. That mechanic is just awful.

On Xbox? Almost certainly Monster Hunter Rise. It's an awesome game.

Overall? Fire Emblem Engage. 63 hours deep in just two weeks. I can't stop playing it.

@FatalBubbles I completely agree, I thought the parry mechanic and the those frustratingly annoying mini rhythm games where you have to hold X and then let ago and hit another button was super annoying. It's a good game but the Gameplay does get frustrating as the game goes on. Still an 8/10.

@Moonglow whenever I criticize an Xbox game on this site I get labelled as a Sony fanboy , you mentioned the multiplexer getting players choice award which is a very good indication of the fanboyism this game had , it wasn't 'the halo infinite multiplayer beta' that won the players choice award it was just halo infinite when it wasn't out & the multiplayer had been out for like 2 weeks & extremely bare bones , if you want to talk about gears 5 I'll happily tell you that was a goty contender when it came out but halo infinite was just a huge disappointment especially with the huge budget it was allocated & it was marketed as 'the biggest halo yet'

@FatalBubbles I couldn't disagree more. I think when the parry is introduced is when the combat really opens up, and it's an absolutely vital mechanic that they want to drill into you, so they will make sure you learn it before allowing you to move on. These kinds of games demanding skill of the player should be the norm if you ask me, and i'm glad we're still getting ones like these.

@Chaudy definitely alot of try but dont play.

MHRise is at about 6% that have finished the quick single player part.
AoE2 ...30% have done the tutorial.

wonder how that compares to say Dead space where you actually have to buy it.

@Sebatrox 😂😂😂
You can hardly compare Minecraft!!! You can download Minecraft on the fridge!! May as well include Candy Crush!!! Spiderman is available on one console!!

@Banjo- @Would_you_kindly i saw your posts and thought i would include myself, sorry the interruption, but i played over 120 hours of Halo Infinite, i think i have a good idea of what the game is and isn’t. First the good and thats that is plays and shoots really well. The multiplayer is some of the tighter gameplay on the market and trust me i play a lot of shooters or at least try them out. It’s lacking content and a wow factor in graphics, that is really the issue, but at the time of a review they don’t know what content will look like, so i can’t really say the reviews were skewed high for Xbox. I hear the budget a lot but something people forget to mention is the games budget wasn’t all the game, it was the new slip space engine and that took them a lot of time and money and really just seems to be the overall bigger problem with getting content out. If they had more maps by now i would still be playing as I think it is worlds better than Overwatch 2 and many of the other free to play shooters gameplay wise. But man 343 that lacking content is just a killer. At 120 hours i still give this game a 85 out of 100. Not seeing a ballooned meta score on this one.

@Green-Bandit it's fair to have differing opinions the campaign I'm probably saulty about them killing off cortana out of the game & starting again (I liked 4 & 5) the multiplayer however I think was terrible way less content than they were hyping with the millions of customization options or whatever it was they said & that's no where near as important as having a good amount of maps & there's very few , I feel the same about mwII for £70 I was expecting more

@Would_you_kindly agreed, i am playing COD MW2 now and there hasn’t been much for 6vs6 maps. I have around 50 hours in and i am starting to tire of it. Thankfully Nintendo Dropped a top 15 all time game for me this week in Metroid Prime. So that gives me a small COD break. But very little maps there and i am surprised a bit. Halo on the other hand is just insanely slow with content and hurt the game badly.

Woops, never said how much I adore hi fi rush. I'm probably in the closing hours. I intend to finish it off this weekend.

@Green-Bandit we all know Activision is greedy so it's not much of a surprise that they'll be saving content for their new 'premium' game this year that will just be another modern warfare (I wanted more of the campaign I loved it but the multiplayer is extremely light on content considering the price increase the rumours of a 2 year development cycle etc) if Activision becomes a more consumer friendly company after the acquisition then I'll welcome it I doubt they'll change much though because why change what makes alot of money & they darent say a bad word about Bobby so I doubt they fire him

@Sakisa I routinely get A or B on timing for the fights but the parry thing is just dreadfully bad to me. I have no issues on any of the other stuff aside from Macaron’s thing which is real weird sometimes? For reference, I’m a guitar and drum player so it’s not like I have no rhythm. 😂

I also just really dislike a game forcing you to play a certain way, and the guys with the swords that you HAVE to parry is a worse case scenario in my opinion.

I’m glad that you liked it though, just annoyed me to no end. Maybe I’ll go back to the game at some point.

@Would_you_kindly yeah it is low on multiplayer content for sure. Not so sure i agree about Bobby, think he will be let go and not brought into the Microsoft company. Which i am sure he is fine with. He’ll be rich and can go work somewhere else if he wants or can retire. But i don’t see him being an official MS team member. MS like them or not is a good work environment, this would send a bad message and they don’t want that for future hires and reputation. I do however hope we do see that two year dev cycle, i know Sony don’t want to see that. Heck maybe not even Xbox, but it’s the right thing to do, let the series have some more time in the oven with idea’s and spread the workers out on other projects. I think that would be the better approach and have those teams work on smaller titles even to bring to GP.

All my play time is in Elden ring I bought the game on sale and I can’t stop playing , hard at first but now I am hooked, so nothing until I beat it.

@Green-Bandit I dunno , they've said he'll stick around for a while after the acquisition & report to Phil Spencer so I know they won't immediately fire him I reckon he'll have something in the terms for buying them that he has to stay their for atleast 10 years (10 years is just a joke because of the proposed deal with playstation & nintendo lol) & I dunno about smaller titles the cod campaigns are already really short & I'm not really attracted to any gamepass titles

@Sebatrox 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Im not sure old games should be on this list, or remakes for that matter (though thats more debatable).
Hifi rush was nice drop though. Its not a goty contender for me, but it was a solid and fun title which benefitted enourmously from a suprise drop and the extra goodwill that brings. When there are no expectations a title will exceed them! I totaly understand people who think it is goty material 😀
Im playing hogwarts atm and thats a possible contender for me, though im only fairly early (15 hours)

We knew 2023 would be a better year for releases and its nice to see it start that way.

@themightyant its because many on PX only like it if you are championing xbox. you cant have criticism or a differing view, its poor little xbox.

you only have to look at how many threads yesterday turned about Sony. needed a tinfoil hat yesterday.

@Moonglow I couldn't have said it better.

@Green-Bandit Thanks for your input and I agree, Halo Infinite is not a perfect game so 85 is fair and everyone has the right to say what they like and dislike. It's perfectly fine, that's what we're supposed to do in the comments section.

However, @Would_you_kindly, you say that it's "very mediocre" and that scores are "inflated". I'd like to believe that you're being sincere and I'd fully accept your opinion as true but you are always coming here for two reasons, either to s**t on Xbox or to divert attention from Sony, blaming Phil or Bobby for all the bad things that are happening to poor harassed Sony, because your fanboyism is out of control, just like the other few users that do the same.

I doubt that you've played Halo Infinite beyond a few online matches. Xbox 360 graphics? I think that you stopped following the game at that beta with those trees without lighting on them that, admittedly, looked bad, as I pointed out that day.

Finally, as owner of a PS4 since launch, I think that some PS games are mediocre and even awful in terms of gameplay and controls and that 99% of Sony's exclusives seem to get extra points and be massively overrated because of the publisher, because they are more interactive films than video games and loved by "casual" critics or for both reasons.

@Would_you_kindly not attracted to gamepass titles yet i can slightly understand, Sort of, cause there’s some good ones, i can’t however fathom you being a gamer and saying there’s no attraction to Elder Scrolls 6, next Fallout, Avowed, Fable, Gears 6, Hell Blade 2, Atomic Heart, etc etc. something on GP will catch your eye in the years to come or be like me and just buy these games. But some killer stuff is in the works. PS5 and Series X are going to kill it this gen for us. Never a better time to be a gamer.

After 3 years of live service, half finished, disappointing AAA games, it seems like we are back on the right track. So many great games announced for this year. Hopefully we can leave this dark age of gaming behind us.

@Green-Bandit I'm looking forward to gears 6 & hellblade 2 didn't really like fallout 4 despite liking fallout 3 same with Skyrim despite liking oblivion , if they finally get rid of the outdated engine & the games don't run like crap then I'll check the new ones out when they finally come

@Would_you_kindly for sure, the engine needs an update, can’t argue that. While i might not play every game i listed, it’s for sure that Xbox has some good hit’s coming and should boost interest in the brand. For me i am waiting for Redfall and Diablo 4, those two on Xbox will log me countless hours. D4 will be in my play rotation for 3-4 years straight, like D3 was. I am hoping that everyone get’s a game or two they really enjoy. Gears 6 will be drop dead stunning looking in Unreal 5. That will be the only game that i will pull time from Diablo 4 for. I am excited for June, PS and Xbox should have some great titles for us. I really want Sony to show the Last of Us multiplayer game. I want to know more for that. I bought a DS Edge with that game in mind.

@Green-Bandit I don't think we have seen anything from 5 of the 7 games you listed. I have been a gamer for 33 years, I don't get excited about a game getting named or know anyone that does. Games like ES6 could be 8 years out and nothing is known about it. We will be well into a new console generation by the time we see it. Seems a bit ridiculous to say someone is not a gamer because they aren't excited about that

@Moto5 didn’t say they aren’t a gamer cause they have to wait for games coming out, but my point and why i listed those games are they aren’t coming to PS, you will need a Xbox to play them and that is the exciting part for the Xbox Ecosystem. Sure ES6 is a long long ways off, but it’s been mentioned to be in pre production stage and as a fan of the series it’s something to be happy for, but i wouldn’t say excited due to it being 5 years away at best, if not closer to 6 like you said. Did you see the part where i said something will catch his eyes in the years to come, not months or days, but years and those are exclusives. Thought my point was a rather sensible one. But some Xbox gamers get cranky to think of the future. Maybe in reason as we have been promised things before.

@Green-Bandit guess I took what you said out of context then. Ironically the only game we know much about on your list IS coming out on PS5, Atomic Heart

@Moto5 no worries, yeah we do know some about Atomic Heart, we also know little and i do mean little about Starfield and Forza. Those were shown off some, and i look forward to the Starfield showcase. That should really let us know what we are in for. Hoping for a release date of course. Then the June show, i mean i would be shocked if Hell Blade 2 and Avowed aren’t there. I think those are locks to be shown, if not something is up and it ain’t good.Gears 6 i think will sadly miss the June show, rumors are out there that coalition is working on a smaller AA game to get their hands and head around Unreal 5. So if that is true then we should hopefully see that. I am a Gears fanatic, my Favorite IP on Xbox. I normally read so much Gears news that i can kind of tell when there might be some bigger news around the game and outside of the now twice rumored Gears collection, Gears 6 talk seems slim. Overall plenty of great games coming and that includes Contraband and Indiana Jones which i think make a good case to be at the June Show. All in all to say GP games don’t interest him, thats fine, but my point was thats maybe a more now thing than what will be in the future, loads and loads of games in development at MS.

Can't wait for re4 remake and atomic hearts, after I finish hi-fi rush I think I'll buy hogwart legacy and dead space remake 😃

I didn't finish persona 4 golden on psvita back then, but now I still undecided whether to play it on xbox/pc gamepass or on steam deck/steam pc.

It's my GOTY so far but I'm fully expecting Zelda to steal it's lunch money. Definitely one of the best games I've played in the last few years for sure though. So much so that I changed my profile pic for the first time since I joined this site a few years ago. Halfway through and loving it.

As one of the few who finished Hi Fi I think people need to chill. Graphics aside its something we've all played before. I think it releasing out of nowhere is inflating the opinions a bit.