In The End, Are You Happy With Xbox's First-Party Lineup For 2023?

Definitely on the way up but still a pretty terrible year in my opinion given that ghostwire released last year the only redeeming aspect was hi-fi rush.
FM had too many issues holding it back and redfall was plain terrible.
Only a few hours into starfield though.

For me, I connected with Ghostwire Tokyo, which I completed and really enjoyed. I didn't hate Starfield, HiFi or Redfall, just not for me. Gave up on all of them pretty quickly. Never tried Forza.

I've been all about indies and 3rd party gamepass this year.

Yes! It was a great year for team green. Possibly the best year of the 3 first parties.
Hopefully they will continue this momentum into next year.

I gave “C” as talking all the games into account it was average overall, no real system sellers there and nothing up to true AAA top quality standards.

FH5 really still is the only game they have released that’s is up there with the best games around.

A solid C. Not their worst year as they actually had a few decent games.

But definitely not their best. They really need to get it going and have 2-3 games like Plague Tale a year.

People love tight, scripted, games. And with all the open world burn out, I'm no longer an exception to that.

They also dropped trash like Redfall and put another franchise in the dumpster, Forza Motorsport.

I only liked Hi-Fi Rush but that's one more game that what I liked from Sony.

I gave it a C.

Hifi -A
Redfall -E
Starfield -D
FM - B

For me redfall aside the other 3 have great games underneath BUT the big 2 just need that extra bit of polish and QC to push them up.

I gave a C which was probably generous considering I only really liked starfield and thats only 7/10 for me might eventually play hi-fi rush and have played a bit of Forza but there basically the same game better graphics each game so there wasn't much from them I loved hopefully next year is better for me

It ended up being a bit of a disappointment given what it could have been. Hi-Fi rush is great, Starfield was uneven but at least had some moments. Forza motorsport lacked single player content, suffered from connection bugs which lost me progress in single player campaign and if I'm being honest, was a little too understated (no music in menus, tone etc). I never even bothered to download Redfall, proper disaster. Minecraft legends really didn't hit either. It felt like a year to make a real statement about first party games on gamepass. Again, I've largely preferred indie and 3rd party gamepass games. A C overall

Gave it a D for decent. Wasn't really anything for me there, except Hi-Fi Rush (an A game). I expected more from FM, but it kind of turned me off quite quickly.. so yeah, not great, but at least something.
I'm really happy for the people who see first party 2023 releases as A grade though. You are enjoying life far more than I do!

I thought it was really good despite Starfield not being my cup of tea and Redfall being a disaster.

Hi-Fi Rush was an amazing. Minecraft Legends was surprisingly good. Age of Empires IV on console is great. The new Forza MotorSport is great too, despite some annoyances. Plus Halo Infinite’s online got great updates.

All good stuff. B for me, could’ve been an A if Starfield wasn’t as disappointing.

i gave a b. just hope a.i. can cut dev times in half.

A for me.

Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield, Redfall and Forza Motorsport.
All games I loved to play this year.

@somnambulance Redfall is not even close to be as bad as people said it was.

Most of Redfall critics are, not surprisingly, people who haven't played Redfall.

Redfall was easily a 7.5 game. Good gameplay loop, fun missions and great ambience.

Also worth pointing out that the Xbox console ports of Age of Empires 2+4, GoldenEye 007 & Quake 2 arrived this year as well from a first party perspective!
Add those into the list and it's a very good year indeed!
(Not forgetting the Rally Adventure Expansion for Forza Horizon 5 and the fact Halo Infinite is finally in a good state)

Except for Redfall for me all the others are hot Games , played 60 hours on starfield, completed hi fi Rush and still playing Forza motorsport. Redfall is not my type of games and with all the bad reviews I didn't even tried it.

To be honest xbox first party releases have been pretty bad I think redfall is terrible and starfield is average hi fi rush was great though I don't think anyone other than nintendo have produced many quality games this year out of the big 3 to be honest xbox and Microsoft need release some triple a quality gmaes next year no more hyping average games up to be the best thing ever like starfield

Unfortunately, Starfield & Forza were big disappointments for me.

The only game I "enjoyed" was starfield, and I never got even remotely close to finishing the story. Hifi rush wasn't made for me so that's a swing and a miss, redfall was terrible once you turn your character around after the giant wave frozen in time literally at the beginning of the game, lasts 1 second then it's all terrible. Forza was one of the biggest letdowns I've ever gone through in gaming and ghostwire definitely needed more time in the oven or a different team working on the gameplay very cool concept though and I did like what I played and plan on finishing the game still. Xbox really needs to get their stuff together, I love gamepass but it's almost more as a concept than what's actually on there.

Bounced off or didn’t try most first party titles this year. As I’ve said elsewhere 343 salvaging Halo Infinite has been the story of the year for me. Game Pass has been decent too.

D
i don't play driving games so the two big forzas don't mean anything for me, played ghost wire on ps5.
haven't tried redfall yet but looks pretty naff/not great/my type

hifi rush looks great but i don't do digital or game pass and i am super annoyed they never released it physical for me to get.

starfield i enjoyed but not as much as previous elderscrolls or fallouts.

@somnambulance Have played at launch too, it had some issues (specially the server disconnections), but apart from that I had a good experience.

I liked the story and visual style of the game, ambience was a plus.

I've finished the campaing with aroubd 40h, I have the intention to get back to it for another play with a different character.

Forspoken so far I have only played the demo and I liked it. It's on my wishlist.

I find it very concerning that Starfield, Forza, and Redfall were all among the worst performing games of the year. Software development is Microsoft's core competency so their games should at least run well.

It's been a fantastic year for games overall, but my highlight was having Antstream turn up

Played Ghostwire on PS5 amd anyone who hasnt played would highly recommend as my game of 22. High fi Rush was a 7 for me, we know all about Redfall and Starfield fell flat and dropped a few hours in. Including Redfall even though technically 22, its a D for me

B for me. Starfield was a solid 8.5 for me and loved the plot and action flexibility but wasn’t the 10 I hoped for. Hifi Rush was awesome and Minecraft Legends for me was a surprise thrill. Forza was good as I expected. But overall solid B. Technically COD released as an Xbox game but I don’t play COD (or at least I’m waiting til the gamepass release of older games to start getting into COD).

@Vipor007 totally forgot about Antstream! A major highlight for me too!

@ParsnipHero Halo Infinite has been great this year! Hoping they just keep this as the MP and release campaigns separately.

This year gave me more reason to turn on my Xbox outside of completing my backlog of older titles. Hi-Fi started the year with being an underdog of a gem and I've been enjoying Starfield so far.

C for me. The game I enjoyed the most was Ghostwire: Tokyo which was originally released as a timed exclusive on PS. Hi-Fi Rush was OK. Starfield was boring. Didn't play Redfall or Forza.

Hi-Fi Rush is one of my top games this year, that alone warrants an A from me.

@eduscxbox That excuse is eyerollingl fan nonsense.
So all the disappointing reviews on Xbox and Steam are largely by those who have not played it huh.
I played it after the 1st major patch... .. the shooting was bad, the glitches were pretty bad, A.I was horrendous, the presentation was juvenile at best- it was an objectively bad game
I can't define how devastated I was with the game. As a huge FarCry fan this was a dream mash up of FarCry and Steven Kings " Salems Lot" book.
It deserved to be drug through the mud, especially as a Xbox 1st party

I think Microsoft has an amazing amount of good games available, for the systems they have available, they have been building or for so long. Its support and longevity for the games they got, I day automatic servers, and phone in help lines, Internet support by Microsoft Support Centers out of Wa. ECT. But please keep it going we always hate ept see out favorite servers go, and especially the nostalgic ones (StarCraft, Doom, If they had Point and Click it would be Space Quest ECT.) Microsoft we love yoooo!!! ❤️❤️❤️

@xMightyMatt14x yea, I hope we see a continuation of the story they started in Infinite in some form in future games.

@S-Bacc Wii Music was 15 years ago. *
Crumbles into dust*

Xbox first party content was a B and a nice variety that could really appeal to everyone. was pentament and high on life 2022 releases and not part of 2023? or xbox has just been churning things out at a steady pace making it feel like it all came out this year?

But gamepass was an A++ that subscription sure as hell did not disappoint and gave me tons to play this year.

I think B is a fair grade.

I had a ton of Fun playing Series X this year all in all not a stellar year but 24 should be a good one

When you have the luxury of owning all systems you can't help but feel the output on the whole is quite soulless. It all feels a bit ubisoft to me. "Churn out a thing that the kids are into".

Went with a D. Played all those mentioned games and Starfield was the only one I didn't play once then delete and move on after a single play session. And to be honest, in the cold light of day, Starfield is a disgraceful effort by Bethesda and after so many years of development should have been a hell of a lot better, but as a stand alone game I'd give it a C - so went with D over all as was a disappointing 2023 for 1st party games vs a great 2023 for gaming in general.

D. Microsoft were all hype and very little substance as per. Starfield was not the endless space epic that we will be playing for the next decade, it was a tedious slog. Months of beautiful Forza trailers before releasing a buggy, soulless grind fest. Redfall…..sigh. Although at least they have worked on improving it since release. You’d hope they learn from the fact that their highest rated and best received game this year was a shadow drop AA title which no one even knew existed.

If MS are going to continue their trend of announcing games 5+ years out before hyping them up to fever pitch levels they need to actually ensure the game is worth hyping because all I’ve seen from them over the last decade is a drastic decline in both the number and quality of their yearly releases. Without Bethesda their first party AAA output 3 years into this gen would be two Forzas and a Halo. That’s just insanely bad but uncle Phil wears retro gaming t shirts and posts his gamerscore on X so all is forgiven.

Let’s not forget they also released AOE2 & AOE4 this year and the XBOX is the only place to play these on consoles, amazing ports.

Easy C - better than the year before but could have been so much more. We started 2023 on a drought from 2022 but expected Forza, Starfield and Redfall in the first 6 months based on E3 Messaging.

Those 3 'big hitters' that were supposed to be the Start of MS's Quality and Quantity of AAA games coming regularly after massive acquisitions, all really failed to live up to expectations. Not saying they were 'bad' games but not exactly GotY contenders or pushing Gaming/Xbox to a 'new' level

With so much promise coming in, under delivering and wasted potential - particularly Redfall with its state at Launch, I can't justify anything more than a C. That was mostly helped by Hifi Rush, AoE2 and 4, Goldeneye etc as well as those '3'

HELL NO. how could anyone be happy with what we got this year? No new halo or gears of war and nothing yet again from rare.

They didn’t increase mindshare with their exclusives this year. Starfield threatened to but landed with a meh.

Gave it a C… I hated every one of these exclusives… but among them is my GOTY 2023 Hi- Fi rush! More like that one next year please.

They still aren’t sticking the landing, but they’re getting better. The letdown of Redfall and lackluster response to Starfield really dragged them down.

Hi-Fi Rush, Age of Empires IV and Forza are the highlights for me. I never got to Redfall due to the state at launch and how long it took for the 60fps mode to be added. I wanted to love Starfield, but it’s ended up being one of the most personally divisive games I’ve ever played. I loved its stories (especially the faction missions) but found so many other aspects of it unintuitive, unrewarding and boring. I put in over 100 hours, and at times loved it and at other points despised it.

I’d give it a B. If Redfall or Starfield had grabbed me more, I think it could have been an A. It’s definitely an improvement on recent years, but I hope that next year will be even stronger.

I just keep reminding myself Hellbade 2 and Avowed is releasing this year.

2023 lineup sounded/looked strong but besides Hi-Fi Rush (great) none of the 1st party games were very good and they failed miserably with Redfall and Forza.

I’m an owner of a PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and a WiiU that still works. Exclusive, or first-party games are a reason that I keep my consoles around. Xenoblade Chronicles X on WiiU is mind-blowing for the hardware it’s running on! PS5 is my go-to gaming platform because it has a better selection of the kinds of games that I enjoy. My Xbox is for Starfield, Forza, and Flight Simulator, which makes it the least impressive of first party games to me. I don’t dislike Xbox, but it doesn’t really have as much draw when I can get most of the same games on my PS5.

Personally, no not even close.
The only two games worth my time this year were FM and Starfield.
Also both are not worth much more than maybe 10 hours each at the state of both games.

Overall objectively it's a C due to the number of games that came first party overall, better than the last two years.

GamePass is the best and worst part of the Xbox still. Maybe 2024 "will finally be the year". But we have all be waiting since 2015 in reality.

Not really, but I’m here for third party stuff anyway

It has been an incredible year for gaming on all formats but Xbox has been superb.
Nothing else to say really.

Forza Motorsport the only I cared the most for NOPE.

Hi Fi Rush deserved the year.

Starfield was a you like it or not your thing. The tech was all I care for and it wasn't impressing me. Same way Rift Apart disappointed tech and gameplay safeness wise for how much it cost. Disappointing. Oh well. There is other games for me old and new/retro to play, research and explore.

The only two I actually cared for. I myself used my Xbox One....... for Anime Blu-rays this year and a bit of Ride 2, some 360 BC testing I haven't gotten around to playing them much. I think I got fair way through Dante's Inferno though this year, started Brutal Legend. Got Prototype 2/Test Drive Unlimited 2 for 360, hope can use Prototype on One/Series with Activision BC (or others besides my PS2 or PS3 versions of some games for OG Xbox/360). Force Unleashed 2, many others.

Minecraft Legends, Age of Empires 2 Def Edn & 4. Sea of Theives updates. Probably missing others.

A fair year they had games (I do acknowledge more than Halo, Gears and Forza any time but still silly it comes to mind as it is, but I won't deny the IPs are fair, it's still a third party machine in some cases but a fair first party machine this year), and a fair variety.

It's a start.

MS has insane number of studios, it's time to start delivering.

Going purely by the games I actually played, I gave Xbox's 2023 a C.

Forza Motorsport - I've put nearly 60 hours into it so far. Happy with it but there's unquestionably room for improvement. It has a really solid foundation, it just needs the ongoing support of new content and a few tweaks to certain aspects of its design. Also, have I mentioned at all this year how sh*te the AI is?

Hi-Fi Rush - The visuals, the animation, the music, the characters; I love everything about this game... except the combat being rhythm based. But that's a me problem, not the game's problem. Hi-Fi Rush went down very well with people and deservedly so.

Starfield - I downloaded it, played for around 3 hours, went to bed, never went back to it. I don't know if or truly believe that it's the disaster a lot of people make it out to be, but there was nothing about what I experienced in my few hours with it that made me want to go back. 🤷

I think some good games came out: Age of Empires IV, Starfield and hifi rush, but they weren't solid enough to pull me away from the Nintendo Switch (which had a very solid year last year). I still play Starfield but it is more in short bursts. I'm just glad SF6 went to xbox. I really didn't want to have to buy all my fighting games on PS.