We’re now fully embedded in the Xbox Series X and Series S generation, each console offering something different depending on your budget and space, but both with the same roster of amazing games to explore.

We’ve gathered together the very best titles for the latest Xboxes right here, in a tight and carefully-curated list of your best options.

FromSoftware has managed a heck of a feat in the form of Elden Ring, perfectly blending its more linear design philosophies with the freedom of an open world to create a huge environment that you can explore in the order you prefer.

Wherever you turn, though, you’ll encounter amazing enemies to overcome in tense and complex combat, with myriad weapons to try out and combinations to explore. Elden Ring will be a phenomenon for a long time.

An RPG so inventive that it has to be played to be believed, Disco Elysium rips up your expectations by letting you truly go off the rails in conversations and in your decisions. You play as a deadbeat cop who’s struggling to close a complicated case, and how you approach things is up to you.

It looks great but the writing is the real star here, with great voice acting bringing it to life and a frighteningly believable dystopian world to explore. If every major RPG let you take this much control, the world would be an interesting place indeed.

Forza Horizon 5 might not be the bravest of new directions, but this is a franchise that knows what it does well. It’s a brilliant open-world racing game that looks simply brilliant on Series X, with gorgeous visuals that beat pretty much every other driving game.

This time the action has moved to Mexico, and that makes for really varied and beautiful environments, with a great soundtrack and absolutely oodles of racing to get through.

Of course, when you think Xbox you think Halo, and while Infinite took a while to arrive, it’s now here in the form of a masterful new campaign and terrific free-to-play multiplayer offering.

This really is Halo back to its best, with a freeform and open-world design that lets you tackle things in your own order and plenty of sandbox fun that rewards you for experimenting with the tools afforded to you.

A brilliant strategy game from the minds at Firaxis, you take charge of an expansive group of superheroes, some incredibly famous and others you might know less well.

Battles are strategic card-playing puzzles, while you also get plenty of time to develop friendships and loyalty with your new crew in downtime. It’s a really satisfying, inventive time-sink to snuggle up with.

Diablo 4 was a long, long time coming – but now it’s here and it’s got a gloriously dark world of twisted storylines and the omnipresent promise of better loot to keep you going through its impressive campaign and into the postgame.

With an always-online world that’s full of activities and challenges to overcome even once you finish its story, this promises to be a game that lives for years to come, and we’re loving it.

The latest game in the Resident Evil series is an unhinged thing of beauty, with a story that’s close to the point of being baffling but super-fun gameplay throughout its twists and turns.

Plus, it looks incredible on Microsoft’s next-gen boxes, with ray tracing and high frame rates making for a beautiful, smoothg experience that will stay with you for ages.

Another game that we had to wait years for, Street Fighter 6 delivers in spades with a roster of fighters that begs to be mastered and a World Tour mode that onboards new players as well as anything the series has ever offered.

The game looks and sounds sparkling, too, and its online modes are stable and fleshed-out, making for the best fighting game package on Xbox Series X/S right now.

Dead Space gets a remake right out of the top drawer, with incredible work done by EA’s Motive Studios to ensure that the original game’s spirit and structure is maintained while being expanded and polished to a modern sheen.

It looks and sounds simply amazing, with lighting that makes for simply incredible scenes as you make your way through the ruined USG Ishimura.

Survivor takes everything that we liked about Fallen Order and refines it, with a more engaging story and a wider array of combat stances and force powers to explore across a range of combat scenarios.

It’s a visually ravishing game that takes advantage of newer hardware to shave down loading times and present a series of gorgeously intricate areas for you to explore.

How to choose your next Xbox Series X or S game

If you’re on the hunt for a new game for your Xbox Series X or S, it won’t have taken long for you to realise how many there are to pick from. Here are some questions to help you figure out what the best pick for you is.

Are you looking for something chill?

Some of the games on this list are pretty active and require a lot of attention and even some skill to do well, and while that’s perfect for many of us, there are alternatives if you want something more laid back and relaxing. The likes of Forza Horizon 5 and Flight Simulator both let you cruise around under your own steam, exploring and seeing sights without needing to necessarily tick off loads of challenging objectives to have a good time.

Will you be playing with friends?

Of course, so many of us now enjoy playing games online with our mates that it’s worth checking before you buy a game whether it’s got an online component or mode that you can enjoy with your pals, whether that’s in the form of co-op or competitive action.

Have you checked out Game Pass?

Perhaps the biggest factor when it comes to buying games for your Series X or Series S is Microsoft’s own package – Xbox Game Pass. This membership gets you a huge library of games to play for a monthly cost, and some of the best games on the platform are included, like Halo Infinite. While we still like owning our favourite games so we know we’ll always have access to them, it’s worth checking out Game Pass to try out the games on it.