The 30 Best Games on the Xbox 360

While it wasn’t as monumental a technological leap as the jump from 5th to 6th generation consoles, the 7th console generation helped to establish many of the gaming trends that persist into the modern era, and the Xbox 360 was the undisputed leader of the pack in delivering the best games of the era. Not only was the Xbox 360 the original home to iconic franchises like Mass Effect and Gears of War, its stellar online service facilitated the rise in popularity of first-person shooters to become the dominant gaming genre, and Microsoft’s willingness to partner with smaller indie developers on its Xbox Live Arcade program helped usher in a new golden age of independent game development. The Wii may have been the generation’s most successful console, but the industry is hugely indebted to the Xbox 360 and its incredible library of games.

• Release Date — April 18, 2012
• Developer — Ubisoft RedLynx, Ubisoft Shanghai
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Genre — Sports, Simulation
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)

Of all the excellent games that were unmissable Xbox Live Arcade exclusives, Trials Evolution might be the best. This more modern take on the physics-driven motocross of Excitebike was an absolute blast that egged players on to commit to one more failed attempt on a level after another, with each of those failures often ending in fits of laughter as you passed a controller around with your friends to see who could finally stick the landing. It was only the second game in the Trials series, and it was never surpassed by any subsequent entries as the peak of the franchise.

• Release Date — March 7, 2006
• Developer — Tiwak, Ubisoft Paris, Red Storm Entertainment
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Genre — Tactical Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)

The Xbox 360 arrived with a strong launch library in the fall of 2005, with the obvious highlight being the console’s version of Call of Duty 2. The seamless functionality of Xbox Live made playing shooters with friends easier on console than it had ever been before, proving that console hardware was finally starting to catch up to PC gaming, which paved the way for the Xbox 360 to be the de facto home for military shooter franchises that had previously been PC exclusive. One of the earliest games to make that exciting leap from PC to console was Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, which was an immediate standout among the second wave of Xbox 360 titles (along with Dead Rising) and a must-have for tactical shooter fans.

• Release Date — October 29, 2009
• Developer — PlatinumGames
• Publisher — Sega
• Genre — Action
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)

As much as Ninja Gaiden II is one of the Xbox 360’s great exclusive games and an incredible character action title, it’s ultimately beaten by the genre’s best game of the era: Bayonetta. Bayonetta was a multi-platform title, but its Xbox 360 version had a bit of a leg up over its PS3 counterpart, largely thanks to its smoother performance. Regardless of which version you played, though, Bayonetta was a clear successor to the likes of Devil May Cry and the obvious choice for the best character action game of the generation.

• Release Date — November 17, 2009
• Developer — Valve
• Publisher — Valve
• Genre — FPS, Co-op, Survival Horror
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)

When the original Left 4 Dead launched in 2008, it helped drive millions of previously single-player-focused gamers to the Xbox Live service with its seamless online co-op and incredibly fun zombie-slaying campaign. Naturally, Valve followed it up with a bigger and better sequel just a year later, outdoing the original by nearly every metric and delivering one of the best co-op shooters of all time with Left 4 Dead 2. That there are still players who boot up their physical copies and play online on an Xbox 360 tells you all you need to know about how important a game it is in the system’s library.

• Release Date — November 17, 2009
• Developer — Ubisoft Montreal
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Stealth
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)

Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed is one of the most important and successful franchises to make its debut during the 7th console generation, and I don’t think you’d find much argument against Assassin’s Creed II being the peak of the series during those initial years of its existence. Assassin’s Creed II successfully built upon everything that made the original great while improving the combat, story, and stealth, establishing the foundation that would carry the franchise forward for years until the more modern, action RPG-style entries that began with Assassin’s Creed Origins.

• Release Date — September 18, 2012
• Developer — Gearbox Software
• Publisher — 2K
• Genre — FPS, Looter Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)

What’s interesting about Borderlands 2 is that it arrived not all that long after the original game in the series, and it was so good that Gearbox was able to ride it out for nearly a decade before the launch of the next mainline game in the franchise. Borderlands 2 doubled down on the insanity of the first game, ditching the occasionally somber tone of the original in favor of something that leaned into its ridiculousness in terms of both its gameplay and its story and atmosphere. Best of all, though, was that Borderlands 2 was the first game in the franchise to flesh out its endgame content, establishing the series as a sort of modern-day FPS take on Diablo that many still consider to be the series’ peak.

• Release Date — November 29, 2012
• Developer — Ubisoft Montreal
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Genre — FPS, Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 91% (Universal Acclaim)

Much like Assassin’s Creed II, Far Cry 3 was a hugely important game for Ubisoft during the 7th generation, establishing the formula that every subsequent Far Cry game would use with its shift to a fully open world. In addition to the gameplay innovations that Far Cry 3 introduced, it also happened to have one of the best-looking open worlds in gaming that contained an almost overwhelming amount of worthwhile content to engage with, and its story was top-notch. Far Cry 3 is the game that helped make lifelong fans of the Far Cry series, and Ubisoft still hasn’t been able to top it (try as they might).

• Release Date — August 25, 2009
• Developer — Rocksteady Studios
• Publisher — Eidos Interactive, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Stealth
• Review Aggregate Score — 92% (Universal Acclaim)

The history of Batman games has been a lot kinder than most superhero adaptations. But even still, the last thing most of us expected to get in 2009 was a game based on Batman that would not only be the best title to ever feature the character, but also establish the formula for the modern superhero game moving forward. Batman: Arkham Asylum is perhaps the perfect Batman game, even if Arkham City arguably one-ups it in several areas, and it all comes down to the game’s tonality. It’s one of the first titles to feature the character to acknowledge the horror-leaning elements of the character and his rogues gallery, and the mix of combat and stealth is almost perfectly balanced.

• Release Date — September 14, 2010
• Developer — Bungie
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 91% (Universal Acclaim)

Bungie’s farewell to the Halo series it created is a fitting full-circle moment that also gave us one of the best games in the franchise: Halo: Reach. The story of Reach in Halo lore is one that was already well-known among fans for its tragically heroic ending, and getting to experience those events firsthand in one of the series’ most thrilling single-player campaigns is nothing short of FPS perfection. Of course, the single-player mode was just half of what made Reach so essential, with the multiplayer being arguably better than that of Halo 3 and setting a high bar that the franchise arguably never cleared after.

• Release Date — April 3, 2007
• Developer — Harmonix
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — Music/Rhythm
• Review Aggregate Score — 92% (Universal Acclaim)

Prior to the Xbox 360 getting Guitar Hero II, the Guitar Hero series had been PS2 exclusive. So when 360 owners finally got their hands on those little plastic guitars and got lost in streams of scrolling notes set to iconic licensed music, there was no going back. Guitar Hero had been a major hit on PS2, but its arrival on the Xbox 360 and switch to a multi-platform title helped pave the way for a period of time in the game industry where titles like Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and Rock Band were virtually unstoppable, and our closets were all filled with their associated peripherals.

• Release Date — October 9, 2012
• Developer — Firaxis Games
• Publisher — 2K
• Genre — Turn-Based Tactics
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)

The reinvention of the XCOM franchise under Jake Solomon at Firaxis Games is one of the best things to happen during the 7th console generation, and its arrival on Xbox was a huge deal for fans of turn-based tactics games. What’s impressive is how well the game controlled using a standard Xbox 360 controller, given that it was intended to be played with a mouse and keyboard, and its visuals and performance hardly took any hit by making the jump from PC to console. TRPG fans were hurting for titles on the Xbox 360, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown gladly and sufficiently filled that gap.

• Release Date — October 28, 2008
• Developer — Bethesda Game Studios
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Genre — Action RPG, FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 93% (Universal Acclaim)

As Ron Perlman reminds us in the game’s iconic intro, “War never changes,” but the Fallout series sure does. Bethesda’s taking over of the reins on the Fallout IP was one of the most exciting news tidbits of the early aughts, with the promise of an Oblivion-style Fallout game almost too good to be true. So when we got just that but better with Fallout 3, it instantly became one of the most essential Xbox 360 games and one of the best RPGs on the console. With hundreds of hours of content between the main game and the DLC, it was certainly enough to keep RPG fans busy until Skyrim came along in 2011.

• Release Date — February 12, 2009
• Developer — Capcom, Dimps
• Publisher — Capcom
• Genre — Fighting
• Review Aggregate Score — 93% (Universal Acclaim)

The Street Fighter series had tried (unsuccessfully) to make 3D entries before, but Street Fighter IV was the first legitimately great game in the series to nail the transition. And unlike those previous attempts, Street Fighter IV wasn’t a spin-off but instead a main, numbered entry, legitimizing its place in the series’ evolution as the next major leap forward for fighting games. The secret? Keeping Street Fighter‘s near-perfect mechanics and balance fixed to a 2D plane while updating the visuals to be more modern, establishing the framework that’s carried the franchise into the modern era, and helped it remain the best fighting game franchise there is.

• Release Date — August 6, 2008
• Developer — Number None
• Publisher — Number None
• Genre — Puzzle
• Review Aggregate Score — 93% (Universal Acclaim)

When thinking of the most “important” or “significant” games of the 7th generation, it’s hard not to have Braid immediately come to mind. The 7th generation was when indie gaming really started to become legitimized by the industry, helped in large part by Microsoft’s willingness to support indie devs with the Xbox Live Arcade program. And while other titles like Super Meat Boy and Fez are almost equally as iconic, it’s Braid‘s timeless puzzle platforming that helped bridge the gap between AAA publishers and indie devs, proving that small-budget games from inventive creators could stand toe-to-toe with million-dollar giants.

• Release Date — March 26, 2013
• Developer — Irrational Games
• Publisher — 2K
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 93% (Universal Acclaim)

The original BioShock was arguably the most important game to arrive on Xbox 360 in the early years of the console (more on that later), so anticipation was high for its official follow-up from creator Ken Levine, BioShock Infinite. To no one’s surprise, BioShock Infinite delivered on every conceivable front, from its white-knuckle combat and traversal to its mind-blowing story and characters. And true to its name, Infinite‘s jaw-dropping ending and time-loop closure on the first game made it feel like a fitting farewell to the franchise and the Xbox 360 itself.

• Release Date — November 10, 2009
• Developer — Infinity Ward
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)

Simply say the words “No Russian” around FPS players of a certain age, and you’re bound to get a discussion going around the quality of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2‘s campaign and the poignancy of that particular mission. But that’s just one of the many unbelievable setpiece moments from Modern Warfare 2‘s campaign, and the campaign is just one half of the package that made Modern Warfare 2 one of the Xbox 360’s greatest shooters. While the original will always be special for how it transformed Call of Duty into the juggernaut it is, Modern Warfare 2 sometimes feels like where the franchise’s campaigns really peaked.

• Release Date — September 25, 2007
• Developer — Bungie
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)

After the cliffhanger from Halo 2, the wait for Halo 3 felt like an eternity, even though it was just a couple of years. But the fact that the Xbox 360 launched without a new Halo game only made that wait harder. Bungie was, of course, more than up to the challenge of concluding Master Chief’s story (for the time, at least), and Halo 3 delivered one incredible moment after another, right up until the triumphant ending sequence that closes out one of the best first-person shooter campaigns ever crafted. And once that was complete, you could spend hundreds of hours in one of the best online multiplayer suites of any shooter on the console.

• Release Date — November 5, 2007
• Developer — Infinity Ward
• Publisher — Activision
• Genre — FPS
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)

As much as Call of Duty is one of the biggest names in gaming today, in 2007, the franchise was a moderately successful FPS that was still butting up against bigger, more established IPs. Until, that is, the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which made superstars of Infinity Ward and studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West, along with catapulting the Call of Duty franchise to the top of the FPS pile. It’s easy to see why, since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has one of the best and most iconic single-player campaigns in the genre, and its multiplayer was faster, more competitive, and more kinetic than anything else around at the time.

• Release Date — March 20, 2006
• Developer — Bethesda Game Studios
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks, 2K
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)

For those of us who were around at the time to experience it firsthand without knowledge of where gaming would eventually take us, making those first steps out of the prison and into the world of Tamriel in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion‘s opening was nothing short of revelatory. Truthfully, the whole game carried that sense of wonder and boundless adventure throughout its runtime, making The Elder Scrolls one of the most popular and important Western RPG franchises and giving the Xbox 360 one of its first killer apps.

• Release Date — November 7, 2006
• Developer — Epic Games
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Third-Person Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)

The Xbox 360’s first full year on the market in 2006 gave it a strong foothold against both the PS3 and Wii (which launched that November), thanks to an incredible library of games that were console exclusive and must-play titles of the 7th generation. One of the more significant of these is the original Gears of War, which not only established one of Microsoft’s most successful franchises but also propelled game designer Cliff Bleszinski to stardom and practically wrote the book on the modern, cover-based third-person shooter.

• Release Date — October 18, 2011
• Developer — Rocksteady Studios
• Publisher — Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Stealth
• Review Aggregate Score — 94% (Universal Acclaim)

Rocksteady had cracked the code on the modern superhero game with the excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum, and for its sequel, they went even bigger. Rather than confine the Caped Crusader to a self-contained map with branching pathways like the titular asylum from the first game, Arkham City sets players loose in the streets of Gotham proper, delivering the best version of an open-world superhero game that players had ever experienced. Not only is Arkham City the highlight of the Arkham trilogy, it’s one of the Xbox 360’s best action-adventure games and a strong contender for its best open-world title.

• Release Date — April 18, 2011
• Developer — Valve
• Publisher — Valve
• Genre — Puzzle Platformer
• Review Aggregate Score — 95% (Universal Acclaim)

The original Portal was a sort of “proof of concept” for a gameplay mechanic that developers at Valve had been working on, and they got to go completely off the rails with the fully-fledged sequel, Portal 2. The platforming and teleporting-based puzzles in Portal 2 are some of the most ingenious challenges ever designed for a video game, and the game’s incorporation of an actual story goes a long way toward separating it from the original’s place as a glorified tech demo. But it was getting to play the entire campaign in co-op that sealed Portal 2‘s fate as one of the greatest games on the Xbox 360.

• Release Date — October 4, 2011
• Developer — FromSoftware
• Publisher — Bandai Namco
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)

With Demon’s Souls being a PS3 exclusive, the arrival of Dark Souls on Xbox 360 was huge, and the large install base of Xbox 360 players who happened to be hungry for a challenging action RPG experience helped make Dark Souls the phenomenon it became. Like several other games on this list, Dark Souls is one of the most important and influential games of the 7th generation, singlehandedly responsible for the creation of the “Soulslike” genre of action RPGs and establishing FromSoftware as one of the biggest studios working today. Funny to think that all came from a game that revels in beating you down.

• Release Date — May 18, 2010
• Developer — Rockstar San Diego
• Publisher — Rockstar Games
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 95% (Universal Acclaim)

Rockstar was practically on fire during the 7th generation, riding high on the unprecedented success of its PS2-era Grand Theft Auto trilogy. Between the fourth and fifth installments in the GTA franchise, Rockstar pivoted to tell an open-world tale set in the last days of the American Wild West, giving players one of the best games of the era with Red Dead Redemption. What’s amazing is how well Red Dead Redemption still holds up, acting as a reminder of how great Rockstar is when its operating at its prime and delivering perfectly-paced, filler-free open-world action-adventure games.

• Release Date — November 11, 2011
• Developer — Bethesda Game Studios
• Publisher — Bethesda Softworks
• Genre — Action RPG
• Review Aggregate Score — 96% (Universal Acclaim)

The only thing that could have possibly beaten Oblivion at its own game was a new entry in the Elder Scrolls series, which is precisely what Todd Howard and Bethesda Game Studios did with the next game in the franchise, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Oblivion‘s success meant that Skyrim‘s launch was far more anticipated than its predecessor’s, and that Bethesda brought us a game that was bigger, better, and bolder in every conceivable way is practically a miracle. Skyrim is still one of the best and most popular RPGs more than a decade after its launch, but it’s that original Xbox 360 version that many players will remember most fondly.

• Release Date — April 29, 2008
• Developer — Rockstar North
• Publisher — Rockstar Games
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 98% (Universal Acclaim)

By the time Grand Theft Auto IV arrived on 7th gen hardware, it had been nearly 4 full years since the launch of San Andreas on PS2. To say that gamers were hungry for the first true “next-gen” GTA was an understatement, and Rockstar took some huge risks when it came to GTA IV. Driving, walking, and shooting were all more realistic than in previous games, which brought its own set of challenges to many of the missions, but the return to Liberty City felt almost like a glorious homecoming. Grand Theft Auto IV was a pivotal moment for the series, ultimately proving that the franchise could evolve and grow up and still be one of the best modern gaming had to offer.

• Release Date — October 10, 2007
• Developer — Valve
• Publisher — Valve
• Genre — Compilation
• Review Aggregate Score — 96% (Universal Acclaim)

It’s almost a cheat to include a compilation title on a list of the Xbox 360’s best games, but Valve’s Orange Box was such a seminal game in the console’s library that it would feel wrong not to. Before the age of Game Pass, The Orange Box was the undisputed “best deal in gaming”, bringing together the entire Half-Life 2 saga, Team Fortress 2, and Portal under a single umbrella and giving players multiple near-perfect games for less than the full cost of one. Heck, put this same compilation out today with the original Half-Life and Portal 2 thrown in and you can bet millions would gladly pick it up again.

• Release Date — September 17, 2013
• Developer — Rockstar North
• Publisher — Rockstar Games
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Review Aggregate Score — 97% (Universal Acclaim)

After the shift toward realism with Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V dialed things back a bit to find a more comfortable middle ground between the series’ past and future. Grand Theft Auto V features more arcade-style driving like you remember from the PS2 trilogy, but its high-tension shoot-outs and heist missions retain the best DNA from Grand Theft Auto IV, resulting in it delivering what’s arguably the greatest gameplay in the series. It’s since been ported to so many systems and made so much money that it’s almost easy to forget it originally launched on 7th generation consoles.

• Release Date — August 21, 2007
• Developer — 2K Boston, 2K Australia
• Publisher — 2K
• Genre — FPS, Immersive Sim
• Review Aggregate Score — 96% (Universal Acclaim)

When we think back on the significance of the 7th console generation, the main thing that comes to mind is how it was the era that started to bridge the gap between home consoles and PC. One of the most important games to illustrate that shift was BioShock, which brought previously PC-centric genres like immersive sims to consoles like never before. But BioShock was more than just significant, it was also an incredibly fun game to play with best-in-class combat, plenty of player agency in how you shape the gameplay loop, and a surprising amount of player agency that made its visually stunning setting feel all the more realistic and immersive. BioShock was essentially the first “next-generation” game to actually feel and look like one.

• Release Date — January 26, 2010
• Developer — BioWare
• Publisher — Electronic Arts, Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Action RPG, Third-Person Shooter
• Review Aggregate Score — 96% (Universal Acclaim)

The Mass Effect trilogy began and ended during the 7th generation, giving the Xbox 360 one of its most important exclusives and establishing BioWare as one of the greatest studios of its time. The peak of the trilogy is the series’ second entry, Mass Effect 2, which ups the stakes for Shepard and their crew while also smoothing out the original’s rough edges where gameplay is concerned. Mass Effect had a great story but some wonky gameplay, Mass Effect 3 had fantastic gameplay but its story let down fans, and Mass Effect 2 is the one game in the series to perfectly nail both elements, cementing it as one of the best games ever made and the most essential game in the Xbox 360 library.