Xbox fans agree they had the worst exclusive of 2023

2023 has been a fantastic year for video game releases with absolute delights such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 to name a few. However, it’s not been all sunshine and roses, especially when it comes to a particular Xbox console exclusive.

Since Microsoft acquired Bethesda Softworks, it not only gained franchises such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout as first-party properties for the green brand, but it also gained talented development studios such as Arkane Lyon who is responsible for some of the most creative and fun first-person titles in recent memory such as the Dishonored series and the critically acclaimed Deathloop.

Check out the Deathloop trailer below!

In our review of Deathloop, we said: “As your experience grows of the ins and outs of the island, you'll maximise the hours you have and become a force unto yourself, shuffling Eternalists off their mortal coil in creative ways. All of this feels fantastic, so hats off to Arkane for setting themselves and the players an exciting, rewarding, and ambitious challenge that they won't forget.”

Sadly, not only was Arkane Lyon tainted with one of the worst Xbox exclusives of 2023, but so too was the video game industry as a whole. We are of course talking about the “shockingly poor” vampiric co-op shooter, Redfall.

The likes of Halo Infinite and Starfield were expected to be the best that this generation had to offer in the respective genres, but while both are good games, they’ve not exactly been the shining light fans had hoped for. That being said, both Forza Horizon 5 and the Forza Motorsport reboot are fantastic racers, and to be fair, Halo Infinite is now in a much better state than it was during launch.

As for Redfall, on aggregate websites such as Metacritic, it garnered a sub-par score of 56 from critics and just 3.5 from fans, which totally sucks, right? With that in mind, Xbox gamers on Reddit have been discussing the first-party exclusives of 2023 and Redfall was a hot topic of discussion.

“Redfall was trash in my opinion, not even close to mediocre, and Starfield was a huge disappointment,” exclaimed EzekielSMELLiott. “I can confirm I played Redfall on Xbox Game Pass for less than five minutes before I uninstalled it,” replied Sensitive_Tear8627.

“I thought Hi-Fi Rush was a pleasant surprise, Forza Motorsport was good, and Starfield was my most played game of the year. Redfall was a disappointment, but I didn’t hate it as much as everyone else,” said bucamel. Following its launch, a series of patches have been deployed for Redfall, which unfortunately haven't fixed many of its issues as explained by this Reddit user: “I couldn't get past the first couple of hours. I tried it again when the 60fps patch was released. It made me realise that lacking a set amount of frames per second wasn't Redfall's issue.

Redfall is out now on PC and Xbox Series X|S as well as being available on Xbox Game Pass. That being said, if you want to spend your time more wisely with Xbox’s subscription service I can wholeheartedly recommend Sea of Stars, Forza Motorsport and DOOM Eternal.