Pure Xbox's Game Of The Year 2025

Here we go, it's officially time for the Pure Xbox Game of the Year 2025 roundup!

A couple of weeks ago, we asked the Pure Xbox community to vote on your favourite Xbox releases of the past twelve months, and you responded with over 1,000 more votes than we saw last year (5,597 compared to 4,209).

We thank you very much for showing up in numbers — and it probably helps that we've seen so many potential Game of the Year contenders this year, from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Split Fiction to Avowed, DOOM: The Dark Ages to ARC Raiders... the list goes on and on.

So, in the roundup below, you'll find the complete top 10 rankings for the Pure Xbox Game of the Year, as determined by your votes. We're going to start from tenth place and work back to the Game of the Year itself, and if you're wondering what finished slightly outside the top 10, you'll find more details in a separate article on December 26th.

Let's get started!

10. ARC Raiders (Xbox Series X|S)

It's hard to believe we first mentioned ARC Raiders on Pure Xbox all the way back in 2021. At the time, it was a free-to-play shooter that felt like it might become lost in the shuffle when it launched, but four years later, it transformed itself into a paid multiplayer extraction adventure that immediately became one of the best examples of its genre.

We noted back at launch how ARC Raiders was "beautiful, immersive, and seriously impressive from a technical point of view", and clearly the fans agreed — it's consistently been in the "Top Paid" Xbox charts since arriving in October. Not only that, but it's managed to break into the Pure Xbox Game of the Year roundup ahead of Split Fiction, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Blue Prince, Helldivers 2 and so many other outstanding 2025 releases.

9. Battlefield 6 (Xbox Series X|S)

Last year, Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 managed to take second place in the Pure Xbox Game of the Year 2024 roundup, whereas this year Black Ops 7 isn't even in the top 25. That obviously has something to do with the reception to the games themselves, but it's also a result of Battlefield's resurgence with the excellent Battlefield 6.

This is basically what we always wanted Battlefield 2042 to be. In our review, we mentioned that "the gunplay feels ace, the game looks and runs beautifully, and all of the core ingredients that make a proper Battlefield game are here", and now it just remains to be seen how it'll continue to evolve in the months and years to come. For now though, it's beaten away the competition to find its way into the Pure Xbox Game of the Year roundup for 2025.

8. Assassin's Creed Shadows (Xbox Series X|S)

It feels like forever since Assassin's Creed Shadows finally landed on Xbox back in March of 2025, and its finishing place of #8 in the Pure Xbox Game of the Year roundup confirms it's remained in many people's minds over the past nine months. It's also a significant improvement over Assassin's Creed Mirage's 15th place finish in 2023.

Truth be told, we haven't played that much of Shadows this year, but in March we mentioned how it was "an incredibly atmospheric and deliciously dark slice of Assassin's Creed", as well as how it felt "more alive with nature and life than we've seen thus far from the franchise". There was a lot of pressure for Ubisoft with this one, but it evidently paid off.

7. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Xbox Series X|S)

Everyone loves a shadow drop, and it doesn't get much better than a remaster of one of the greatest RPGs of all time! The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered cropped up back in April following a series of rumours that some kind of remake or remaster was in the works, and it proved ridiculously popular across all platforms, racking up four million players within just a few days.

It helps that it was actually a good remaster, of course. In our initial "Hands On", we mentioned how Oblivion Remastered felt like "starting out fresh in a brand new RPG" due to the level of work that had gone into it, highlighting the "pure delight of rediscovering old friends and places that have been totally revamped". Bethesda's Todd Howard has even suggested he wants to do more shadow drops based on the success of this one.

6. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (Xbox Series X|S)

Talk about an immersive RPG! Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is a game that demands a lot of free time and patience in order to get the most out of it, but rewards you with one of the most epic experiences this genre has ever served up. The first game was really good, but Deliverance 2 takes everything to the next level — it's easily the better of the two for us.

In fact, we came quite close to giving this sequel a 10/10 score earlier this year, but ultimately settled on an "Excellent" 9/10 with just a couple of minor cons. The list of pros was extensive, such as its beautiful visuals, rewarding combat, excellent writing, and superb interlocking mechanics and RPG systems. Deliverance 2 has already won GOTY over at PC Gamer, and it almost made the top five here.