The Best Xbox Games And Gifts To Give This Holiday

Custom Xbox

The holidays are all about giving presents to the ones you love, apparently. But no one wants to receive another poorly fitting t-shirt or novelty jumper. What your loved ones want is games, so they can play them through the holidays and not have to socialise with the rest of the family.

But it’s only a few weeks away and you have no idea what to buy the Xbox gamer in your life, right? Don’t worry, we’re here for you. The following games are all highly rated and praised, and they’re not available as part of the Game Pass subscription service. Check any of these out and you won’t be disappointed. It’s not all about games, either - we’ve got a couple of other recommendations too…

Xbox Game Pass

Not sure what game to buy? Buy all of them! Xbox Game Pass gets you access to hundreds of games for a monthly or yearly subscription. It’s one of Microsoft’s best features, and it means you don’t have to worry if you’re buying the right game or not. The recipient can download over 100 games for free, play them and delete them as they see fit. It kind of undervalues games to a certain extent, but then we could argue that 90 percent of games are overpriced copies of one another anyway. Whatever, Game Pass is a win for the player. All first-party games arrive on Xbox Game Pass on day one, and other games are rotated in and out of the service every month, so you’re never short of games to play.

Custom controllers

Please, never give third-party controllers as gifts. We appreciate your good intentions, but it has to be first-party or GTFO. If you want to give something unique, then get yourself over to the Xbox Design Lab and you can create a custom controller for the one you love (or yourself, if that’s the one you love). There’s plenty of color options and other things like colour-shifting top plates and engraving. It’s a neat gift and it shows you care.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring is one of the best console role-playing games of this generation, and it provides hours of deep, weird, challenging, and mysterious gameplay. As with a classic tabletop RPG, players choose a class and customise their character in this traditional fantasy setting - before setting out on an epic quest. On the surface world it’s an adventure across a bleak land, as you gallop miles across an open map and explore The Lands Between. But often hidden, linear dungeons litter the landscape, and bring an intensity to the game and its combat that you won’t find in any other game. There’s a reason why it sold 20 million copies in its first year.

Red Dead Redemption 2

There aren’t many games set in the wild west, and there aren’t any that are as good as Red Dead Redemption 2. The makers of Grand Theft Auto apply their living, breathing world formula and excellent storytelling to the lawless and brutal America of 1899. It features all the wild west cliches you’d expect; robbing a moving train, hunting and camping in the wilderness, shootouts at high noon, gambling, bounty hunting, boozing and bar-room brawls. You can take it at your own pace if you want to, because the compelling story is always there for you to catch up on when the time feels right. A true modern masterpiece.

Cyberpunk 2077

Although Cyberpunk has been out since 2020, it’s only now that we can recommend it. When it first released it was a disappointing, buggy and clumsy mess. But that frustration has been put aside now that developer CD Projekt Red has spent two years fixing problems, adding features, and dropping the equally excellent expansion Phantom Liberty. Now it’s the game it was always meant to be; an adventure through a future world of exploitation, selfishness, gun fetishism and technological porn. It’s seedy in all the right places.

Sifu

One of the best games of the past two years, Sifu is a kung-fu tale of revenge, and a meditation on the encroachment of time. Possibly. What that really means is you take control of a martial arts master and absolutely pummel your way through goons with some stunningly beautiful animation. The hook here is that every time you die you come back older and wiser, but being closer to death you’re more vulnerable. You can replay levels to come back younger, but you also want to unlock certain skills that are age-gated. It’s an intriguing system and offers plenty for anyone looking for replayability.

Alan Wake 2

Probably one of our favourite games of this year, Alan Wake 2 is a horror adventure with a mystery that is equal parts weird and goofy. You play as both FBI agent Saga Anderson and tortured writer Alan Wake, as you try to unravel what the hell is going on in Bright Falls and the living horror story that unfolds around it. It’s a unique world with fun combat against the darkness, some teasing puzzles, and a rewarding payoff. And if you like that, you should absolutely dive into Control, an equally odd but more action-packed adventure set in a similar world.