As Xbox refuses to play the console wars game in 2025, it's traded exclusivity for a multi-platform future – but its biggest names are still at large

Between the high-profile launches of Avowed, Grounded 2, and The Outer Worlds 2, the Xbox Series X was no stranger to smaller-scale successes in 2025.

We finally got our hands on 33 Immortals when it launched into Early Access in March, April saw Bethesda's whipcracking epic Indiana Jones and the Great Circle debut on PS5, Doom: The Dark Ages brought a new spin on a classic FPS in May, and Compulsion Games' action-adventure take on Southern Gothic folklore left me spellbound in my South of Midnight review. Oh, and there's also the tiny matter of one of the best Elder Scrolls games getting a shadowdropped remaster that same month.

The slimmed-down roster, mostly composed of cross-platform and third-party titles, shows that Xbox is in a period of quiet re-focusing. It's good to see it investing in its award-winning IPs and taking chances on new ones after 2024 left many of its victories overshadowed by layoffs and studio closures. That said, the parent company hasn't managed to totally side-step further scrutiny this year; October saw 9,000 more Xbox employees told to pack their bags to cap off an already fraught time for industry layoffs, and the sudden cancelation of Everwild and the Perfect Dark reboot left the latter studio shuttered for good.

For once, though, I feel like I'm heading into the new year with a clearer picture of Microsoft's intentions – even if most of the upcoming Xbox Series X games we've been waiting so patiently for still have question marks over their release dates.

Play safe

When I think about Xbox's journey in 2025, one studio immediately springs to mind. Obsidian was already behind some of the best Xbox Series X games of recent years, but having delivered a staggering trifecta of games in just 10 months, it's clear that Microsoft has found its new Chosen One.

It's just as well, because Xbox started 2025 with big shoes to fill. Specifically, those belonging to a certain exploring archaeologist. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle landed at a curious point in the late-2024 schedule. The bombastic holiday blockbuster was the finishing touch on Microsoft's annual offerings, the hype carrying us into the new year with Xbox firmly in our good graces. Then, February kept the good times rolling with the first Obsidian game of 2025: Avowed.

Sitting somewhere between being Obsidian's own Skyrim and a totally distinct fantasy RPG experience, Avowed was the harbinger of successes yet to come. It would be easy to distil Xbox's 2025 as the year of Obsidian, but I actually find it more helpful to use each of its three games as benchmarks when looking at the year as a whole.

If Avowed marked the continuation of Indiana's rose-tinted hangover, April sobered us up. It was a shame to see Compulsion Games' South of Midnight garner a little less attention than I'd have hoped – it's the perfect example of a made-for-Game Pass game if ever I saw one, easily completed in a single weekend and charming to the very core, but it was no match for buzz around The Elder Scrolls 4: Obsidian Remastered's stealth drop later that month.

The Bethesda remaster launched on PS5 too, with Xbox notably stepping away from total console exclusivity for a lot of its legacy titles inherited through recent studio acquisitions like Bethesda and Activision.

Into the unknown

While I'm personally all for dismantling the unhelpful "console wars" on a fundamental level, it does mean that Xbox didn't see another homegrown exclusive launch until July.

Grounded 2 went into Early Access in the midst of summer, and much like Avowed before it, the Obsidian game is only playable on PC and Xbox Series X|S – at least temporarily, like the first game. Meanwhile, October saw The Outer Worlds 2 skipping the exclusivity stage completely, par for the course given that The Outer Worlds 1 launched on PS5 and Nintendo Switch too.

But Xbox's cross-platform victories still belong to Microsoft. I respect the parent company for ensuring that its newly acquired properties aren't being withheld from their audiences unfairly. It makes sense that Avowed, as a new IP spinning off the Pillars of Eternity universe, has no such compunction.

As 2026 beckons, Xbox leaves 2025 in a much quieter fashion than it entered. Survival horror Routine followed fellow third-party entry Moonlighter 2 as the last (albeit temporary, in Moonlighter 2's case) exclusives of the year, leaving all eyes on the horizon. Xbox had a notable lack in new game release dates shown off at The Game Awards 2025, choosing instead to announce a January developer direct showcase that will hopefully shed some light on big names we're waiting to hear about.

I'm most keen to hear what the score is with Playground's new Fable game, having been pushed to 2026 to stand in the shadow of GTA 6's impending launch, as well as Forza Horizon 6, Clockwork Revolution, Marvel's Blade, and OD – an upcoming horror game from Hideo Kojima. That's before we even glance in the direction of the upcoming Bethesda games in the works, including The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5.

2025 feels like a year where Xbox slowed down to take stock of itself. Here's hoping that 2026 puts those plans into action and presents a refined, united front that will prove why Microsoft deserves to be at the forefront of conversations – with or without the console exclusivity that once governed all.

Xbox has strong rep among the best games of 2025, and there's plenty more besides