We're going to be publishing our official Pure Xbox Game of the Year 2022 roundup here later this week, but before we do that, we thought we'd take a look at the highest-rated Xbox games of the year according to Metacritic.
It'll come as no surprise to hear that Elden Ring takes the top spot, but there are a few games that aren't too far behind. The lower half of the list is also filled with games that have acquired very similar Metascores throughout the year.
We're going to publish two lists here — the first is the standard way Metacritic calculates its rankings, where games with less than 7 reviews aren't counted at all. Here are the top 10 Xbox games of 2022 based on those rules:
- Elden Ring - 96
- Persona 5 Royal - 94
- The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - 93
- Cuphead in the Delicious Last Course - 92
- Rogue Legacy 2 - 90
- Deathloop - 89
- Immortality - 88
- TMNT: Shredder's Revenge - 87
- Pentiment - 86
- Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection - 86
That's the list based on games with a certain number of reviews, then, but if we want to include games with slightly less reviews for Xbox on the Metacritic platform, it actually changes the rankings quite significantly.
So, here's what the list looks like if we include all Xbox games with at least 4 reviews on Metacritic:
- Elden Ring - 96
- Vampire Survivors - 95
- Persona 5 Royal - 94
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition - 94
- The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - 93
- Cuphead in the Delicious Last Course - 92
- RimWorld Console Edition - 92
- Rogue Legacy 2 - 90
- Deathloop - 89
- Roguebook - 89
It's interesting to see there's no place in either of these lists for A Plague Tale: Requiem, which has a real shot of winning the Pure Xbox Game of the Year award for 2022, while other popular releases such as Tunic, Grounded 1.0, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Marvel's Midnight Suns and more failed to crack the top ten.
If you're interested, Metacritic also published its list of the worst games of 2022 earlier this month:
What do you make of these best Xbox games of 2022 lists? Let us know down in the comments.
Comments 18
For a console with no games, my backlog is a monster lol
The trouble with using number of reviews on Metacritic is that Xbox is usually the least reviewed system for multi platform games for some reason. PC and PlayStation usually have far more. It's one thing I like more about Opencritic, which just reviews games, the downside is it doesn't tell you if a specific version is bad. pros and cons.
@armondo36 100% always more to play than there is time.
@Microbius Agreed. I loved Elden Ring, but the rest of this list is trash.
Glad to see I’m not the only one with the Cuphead DLC in the top 10.
I have come to realise alot of critic reviews dont share my taste and opinion on games
@Microbius
You should play Persona 5 it is miles better than Elden Ring.
@Romans12
Try Persona 5, it is better than Elden Ring.
@Neverwild Respectfully disagree that Persona 5 tops Elden Ring. I feel that anyone and everyone should try both titles! They are both among the greatest games of all time. When you get to the 10/10s, it’s all personal preference at that point.
@Microbius Metacritic has always been a problem that never should have existed. The idea of taking an aggregate of reviews, specifically only from publications that meet high circulation thresholds, that all have totally different scoring systems with different bases for scores, and turn them into a single round number as a value of the game, simultaneously curates which publications are allowed to actually matter, ignores their individual rating systems, includes any biases, and gives everyone a round, meaningless number to judge a game by. It also helps the industry paint by numbers, so that rather than trying to impress people with new ideas, games are designed around making sure to hit all the checkboxes that generate predictably safe critical scores.
I wanted Metacritic to disappear back in the '00's, and I still do.
The other issue is just the nature of reviews, not just in games, but also music, books, film, are naturally a RELATIVE score to its nature, genre, etc. In film a 9/10 review of a Michael Bay blockbuster will not mean exactly the same thing on an absolute scale as an 8/10 review of a French B&W arthouse film set in WWII. But if you aggregated the scores as Metacritic implies you can, then Transformers 7 is simply a superior film to the arthouse tearjerker of love and war.... You can't do that. The French flick may be an 8/10 as far as arthouse serious type films go, and the Bay film may be almost perfect as far as blockbusters full of explosions, but the two don't compare directly against each other in any way beyond that both are played through a projector toward a screen and were recorded with cameras.
Same with games. Pentiment may be an 86 as an experience, and as a well made chose-your-ending visual novel. TMNT: Shredder may be an 87 aggregate bump arcade brawler. But these are entirely different genres and products that can't in any way compare to each other beyond that they both play on Xbox and are both computer graphics programs... But metacritic wants to apply they're both relatable and TMNT is better than Pentiment. Although, I suppose Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo do slot nicely into Pentament's world and themes.....perhaps I should rethink this....Heroic individuals clad in but half a shell, mayhap?
@somnambulance
Well Elden Ring is a 7-8 at best and Persona 5 is a 9.
Elden Ring is not that great since they fail in every aspect, it is a good game and dont think it is top 5 of FromSoftware games.
@Neverwild Definitely disagree. Not sure where Elden Ring fails unless you want a concrete and direct method of story-telling. For me, Elden Ring is likely in my top 10 of all time. There’s few titles I’ve enjoyed more deeply, personally. There’s few 10/10 titles and Elden Ring is most certainly one of them for me. I can’t say the same about any other FromSoft title.
@somnambulance
Bosses was not good, bosses from their earlier games is better. Also exept bigger bosses it was much copy paste.
Open world was not good, they are better on more linear. If next is open world they might have it better by then but no excuse for Elden Ring on that part.
So in all a good game but not great.
This Top 10 surprises me and think some of the scores are too high also. I remember when any game that was able to get near or over 90 score was pretty much Legend status. Doesn’t seem to be the case these days.
where is high on life?
People calling Vampire Survivors and Rogue Legacy 2 (though I haven’t played the second, if it’s half as good as the first then it’s amazing) trash? Oh dear. I kinda suck at Cuphead but otherwise would get on The Delicious Last Course.
@NEStalgia underrated comment (as usual really).
People have different tastes and that's fine and dandy, but I'll NEVER understand the circle jerk surrounding Elden Ring. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I saw people saying that GoW was a "glorified DLC" and calling ER "revolutionary" and fresh. It's an open-world Dark Souls game with the same janky mechanics that FromSoft is known for. It's a fine game, but please stop calling it a "masterpiece".
Elden Ring is most certainly a masterpiece of a game. Just incredible and getting the itch to play through it again.
Persona 5 was one of my favourite games of last year as played it on the PS5. I'd say both are easily in my top 10 games of all time.
This article has reminded me I need to get back to RL2. Loved the first one and the sequel improves it in nearly everyday. Killer soundtrack too.
@dimi LOL
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