It goes without saying that 2023 has been a fantastic year for video games, and that includes in the world of Xbox where we've seen so many high-quality releases (especially in recent months) that it's been too difficult to keep up!
As a result of such a prolific year, there have also been a lot of underrated or underappreciated games along the way. We've played many of them - Atlas Fallen, Lego 2K Drive, Immortals of Aveum, Crash Team Rumble, Robocop: Rogue City, Ghostrunner 2, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Aliens: Dark Descent... the list goes on and on!
And beyond just the new releases, it's also been a very busy year for Xbox Game Pass as always. It's inevitable that a few titles have been overlooked over the past 11 months, especially when it comes to the smaller indie games.
So, we want to use this opportunity to highlight some of the most underrated Xbox games of 2023. Tell us in the comments what you've personally been enjoying the most, and hopefully we'll discover a few gems in the process!
What are the most underrated Xbox games of 2023? Leave your picks down in the comments below.
Comments 34
Only one comes to mind: Starfield 😈
Atomic Heart. On a 70-75 on metacritic, I think it's underrated.
No one really talking about Everspace 2 … deserves a bit more love…
@Cherip-the-Ripper 70-75 is an absolutely great score for a great game.
People need to stop seeing the 60 to 75 range as anything but good.
I still need to play robocop. Just too much to play on gamepass right now.
Atomic Heart for sure. Super underrated game of this year.
@darkswabber I agree 50 should be considered average with anything above it being above average/good/great
@Cherip-the-Ripper absolutely loved Atomic Heart. This was probably my favorite year of gaming, ever. I know that's a big statement, and Atomic Heart was a big reason why it was so awesome.
@darkswabber I agree but that's not the point I'm trying to make.
I think it deserves a higher score than the one it's got right now, that's what my experience equates to.
@JustinSane I absolutely agree. Short term, 2018 was great as well but it pales in comparison to this year's offerings. And I haven't even played the majority 😂
Something I haven't played yet is most likely the right answer here
Personally I think Starfield and Atomic Heart were fairly reviewed and appreciated. Both similar in that they do some things excellently but also have some glaring flaws. Atomic Heart in particular. But I’m excited to see what that team does next as it was a solid first game for the studio that got a LOT of things right, but just fumbled the landing. A lot of talent and potential.
Most underrated? Depends on definition, low scoring or underplayed / underappreciated? For the later probably Blasphemous 2, which reviewed really well (84) but no one seems to talk about. I also heard very good things about Casette Beasts, a Pokémon-like on Game Pass, but I haven’t played it. Also an 84 that seems to be ignored.
redfall redfall redfall
I'd say Remnant 2 is the probably the most underrated game of the year, but there are a lot of other contenders. I feel like Jedi Survivor didn't get enough praise for how good it is. People seem to have forgotten that it even exists. Amnesia: The Bunker is a gd masterpiece, and I never hear anyone talking about it. Redfall too was more fun than people give it credit for. Not a great game, but I had a lot of fun with it. Atomic Heart was okay at best in my opinion, and not underrated at all. That's my 2 cents anyway.
@darkswabber Go tell your school teacher that, haha.
But I thought Xbox didn't have any games.
Really baffled to see Atomic Heart and Redfall getting praise on here. Personally thought both of those were like 3/10 and 4/10 respectively.
Chants of Sennaar, Jusant, and Venba come to mind for Xbox this year. Not enough people talked about the Castlevania expansion of Dead Cells either. Across all platforms, I think Forspoken is the most underrated game this year, following by perhaps Nour…
I'm not sure if it was underrated or if it's just a niche game (probably the latter) but Aliens Dark Decent is my personal game of the year in what is one of the best gaming years on record surely. (I can't wait to see what this developer does next). I have a ridiculous backlog and am therefore hoping 2024 is very quiet!
Just finished Everspace 2, and for me it is a game that deserve better. I never finished the first one because of the rogue design, but the sequel is what a sequel should be, correct faults and expands on the good things and you've got a winner. But no one talks about it.
I was very pleasantly surprised by Atlas Fallen; also need to play Robocop at some point…
@ZYDIO well I’m European so my school teachers would argue anything 55 and above is good.
@themightyant I came on here to mention blasphemous 2!! I'm playing just now and it's a cracker of a game. More metroidvania than 2-D souls (which is a change round I understand from the first game, which people feel was more the other way round). Great movement, fun bosses, brilliant art style, if anyone is fed up waiting for silksong and wanted a good metroidvania to keep them going, I would recommend.
Certainly Rollerdrome, since it launched more than a year ago on PS and now it's on Xbox with no fanfare.
It's an amazing, tight game, and it's even 50% off at the moment!
enjoyed Atomic heart and Redfall are good games but they get overlooked because they arnt great games but as with most things now days your either one or the other so if there not great they must be rubbish its utter nonsense
the truth is somewhere in between
Redfall is my underrated game of the year everyone dogpiled on that game it launched buggy and wasnt a dishonoured clone so everyone got on the hate bandwagon and dismissed it as rubbish when i found it to have an enjoyable loop to it and enjoyed my time with it.
no way that game is a 56/100
I already forgot what came out this year
@darkswabber Is a 70-75 great? Opencritic breaks the games into tiers. The top two tiers account for the best 40% of all games being reviewed and currently the dividing line for tier 3 is 74 so if a game receives a score below 74 it is at best a 59th percentile game which to me is not great. I have enjoyed games that have scored below 74 but I can always see the glaring issues keeping those games from being great.
Wo Long. It's ugly and the story is bad but the combat is so so so good. I thought Lies of P was the best soulsike this year but Wo Long had better combat.
@RBRTMNZ open critic is a review aggregator and isn’t an authority on quality or critical intend.
And that you don’t personally consider scores as intended doesn’t make them such.
Most if not all game critics and journalists, both professional, video format or amateur, consider scores starting with 6 to be good and 5 to be average.
@darkswabber My initial point was that games falling outside the top 40% percent of reviewed games are not great but to extend this to games scoring 5-6 meaning they’re not even in the top 50% of reviewed games, I don’t disagree, they might be good/average, but my point remains, there are literally thousands of games that review above good/average. With thousands of 7-10 games I’m probably only playing a 6 in some very rare cases like if it’s my favorite genre and I’ve already played everything better.
To put it in context, you’re right that Atomic Heart(56th percentile) is not bad, I played a couple of hours and it was fine, but I dropped off because like other games in its review range it has glaring weaknesses (combat, puzzles, dialogue) that make it clear there are hundreds of better games I could be playing. I would only play it if the setting had drawn me in more or if I was really into first person melee. It’s quality makes it niche and the scores reflect that.
Having fun with Stray Blade. Tried it during free play weekend and decided to buy it while it was on sale. Haven't seen it yet a lot of love.
Aliens Dark Descent. I need to play that baby.
Dead island 2
Wo Long and Blasphemous 2
Aliens Dark Decent, amazing game
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