Best Shooter Games on the Xbox

Shooter Games are one of the things the Microsoft Xbox is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta.

The Xbox and Shooter Games

A PC in a black box, two years before anyone else had a hard drive or an online service that worked. Its library leans Western and leans technical.

This is one of its strengths. First-person shooters and Western RPGs — Halo, Morrowind, Knights of the Old Republic — plus a strange run of Sega and Japanese exclusives it inherited when the Dreamcast died.

Filtering to shooter means you want the guns to be the answer. It is the right filter when what you liked was the feedback — the sound, the recoil, the way enemies react.

The Shooter Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Halo Combat Evolved

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. Halo 2

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. Panzer Dragoon Orta

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Crimson Skies

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. MechAssault

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Star Wars Battlefront II

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  7. 7. Oddworld Stranger's Wrath

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Shooter Game

Moment-to-moment feel, and the shortest distance between picking a game up and enjoying it.

Variety. Shooters commit hard to one loop, and the ones that try to be something else usually do the something else badly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best shooter game on the Xbox?

Halo Combat Evolved is the usual first answer, and there are 7 in the library we cover.

Was the Xbox good at shooter games?

Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 7 in the library we cover.

What makes a shooter feel good?

How the guns sound and how enemies react to being hit. A shooter with mediocre levels and superb weapon feedback is more fun than the reverse, every time.

Do these need to be played online?

Each pick says. Several of the best shooters ever made are single-player campaigns, and a few of the co-op ones are genuinely worse with bots.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the Microsoft Xbox, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Shooter Games on Other Consoles

More From the Xbox

Or browse the whole Microsoft Xbox library.