Support NeoGAF

[LectureMaster]

Introducing the Xbox Excellence Awards, Honoring the Studios Behind the Games You Loved Most in 2024 - Xbox Wire

As a thank you to game creators, and to shine a light on the games that players loved in 2024, today we’re announcing the recipients of the Xbox Excellence Awards.

news.xbox.com

---

Amazing games are at the heart of our mission to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet. Now, more screens than ever can be an Xbox, and those screens are lit up by the incredible portfolio of games brought to life by talented developers around the world. These teams create unforgettable gaming experiences that engage and inspire players of all ages. As a thank you to the creators of those games, and to shine a light on the games that players loved in 2024, today we’re announcing the recipients of the 2024 Xbox Excellence Awards.

With over a thousand games launching annually on Xbox consoles, PC and cloud, this could be a case of simply picking a panel to decide – but the Excellence Awards are all about how you engaged with Xbox over the last year. To assemble the list, we selected four key categories which are indicators of players’ passion, engagement, and love for these games. Those four categories are:

• Store Rating: Highest-rated content across our stores released in 2024, with a minimum of 500 ratings.
• Player Engagement: Games with the highest average hours per player within the first six weeks of release.
• Daily Active Users: Games, expansions, or major updates with the highest single-day active users in 2024. You may notice games that weren’t released in 2024 in this list – that’s because they got a significant update last year.
• Units Sold: Top-selling content across Xbox and Microsoft stores.

The final list represents a diverse collection of titles produced by studios comprised of anywhere from tens to thousands of developers, located in 15 different countries worldwide. You can find the titles for each category – listed alphabetically – below.

---

Store Rating	Player Engagement	Daily Active Users	Units Sold
Balatro	Dragon Age: The Veilguard	Apex Legends	7 Days to Die
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden	Dragon’s Dogma 2	Call of Duty: Black Ops 6	Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Botany Manor	EA Sports College Football 25	Dead Island 2	Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth	EA Sports FC 25	Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred	Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Little Kitty, Big City	F1 Manager 2024	EA Sports College Football 25	Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
Lollipop Chainsaw RePop	Farming Simulator 25	EA Sports FC 25	Dragon’s Dogma 2
Metaphor: ReFantazio	Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail	Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree	EA Sports College Football 25
Nobody Wants to Die	House Flipper 2	Fallout 4	EA Sports FC 25
Persona 3 Reload	Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth	Fortnite	EA Sports Madden NFL 25
Poppy Playtime: Chapter 1, 2, 3	Metaphor: ReFantazio	Forza Horizon 5	Farming Simulator 25
Return to Grace	MLB The Show 24	Grand Theft Auto Online	Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
Rounds	NBA 2K25	Indiana Jones and the Great Circle	MLB The Show 24
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II	New World: Aeternum	Marvel Rivals	NBA 2K25
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance	NHL 25	Minecraft	NHL 25
Sonic x Shadow Generations	Path of Exile 2	MLB The Show 24	Palworld
Still Wakes the Deep	Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance	Palworld	Phasmophobia
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria	Skull and Bones	Roblox	Star Wars Outlaws
The Outlast Trials	Star Wars Outlaws	Rocket League	The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
Unicorn Overlord	Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2	S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl	Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2	WWE 2K24	Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege	WWE 2K24

 

[Zacfoldor]

Xbox and Ubisoft.

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[Saber]

 

[viveks86]

Just kill me already

EDIT: Happy to see Balatro up there, though

 

[GHG]

Wait this isn't a parody?

 

[Mr Moose]

It's not even April.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Why would these categories make any sense?

Why are there so fucking many?

Xbox is such a joke these days.

 

[Rambone]

Glad to see a few Atlus titles on there. Reminds me that I should pop in and play some Shin Megami.

 

[jshackles]

 

[Three]

Why would these categories make any sense?

Why are there so fucking many?

Xbox is such a joke these days.

I have no idea why there are so many. Just ends up looking like an alphabetical list of games. I guess they were going for participation awards for xbox.

 

[viveks86]

I have no idea why there are so many. Just ends up looking like an alphabetical list of games. I guess they were going for participation awards for xbox.

Even their awards have DEI. Everybody gets one. Beat that, Oprah!

 

[adamsapple]

Why would these categories make any sense?

Why are there so fucking many?

Xbox is such a joke these days.

It's just a list of top 20 things by category, not much different than PSN top downloads.

Y'all really are something

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

It's just a list of top 20 things by category, not much different than PSN top downloads.

Y'all really are something

It's called an Award, and there's twenty winners for categories that have no relevance whatsoever for any consumer, aside from possibly store rating (if that wasn't completely useless.) Microsoft provided us with the everyone-gets-a-trophy, shotgun approach of "here's a bunch of titles for no reason, most of it's shit tho".

We're acting like it's different because they literally said it was different.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

 

[Three]

It's just a list of top 20 things by category, not much different than PSN top downloads.

Y'all really are something

Looking forward to the "PS Excellence Awards" next month. You mean Xbox are really something for renaming top 20 charts into "Excellence Awards" then listing said charts alphabetically rather than by any metric making said point of chart completely useless but clearly the same as other charts according to adamsapple. Amazing work.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[Pasta la Vista]

Those games definitely won engagement numbers on gaf, ahahaha...

I'll see myself out.

 

[panda-zebra]

Wow, was thinking to myself only yesterday, I wonder what 20 games with a minimum of 500 ratings scored highest across Microsoft's stores last year - it sure would be amazing to have a list (sorted alphabetically of course to make it extra meaningless).

When everybody wins we all... err, no that's not it.

 

[adamsapple]

Looking forward to the "PS Excellence Awards" next month. You mean Xbox are really something for renaming top 20 charts into "Excellence Awards" then listing said charts alphabetically rather than by any metric making said point of chart completely useless but clearly the same as other charts according to adamsapple. Amazing work.

It's recognizing games that did well smh..

 

[Fake]

A useless award nobody give a shit.

 

[ANIMAL1975]

Gaf wons.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Great to see the Time Magazine GotY 2024 getting all the accolades it deserves.

 

[BlackTron]

It's an excellence award just to be in the top 20 of some metric like daily active users?

At least Nintendo Power organized the power charts by a ranking...

 

[Three]

It's recognizing games that did well smh..

I'm just saying you calling it "no different to a chart" is reaching, even for you. I recognise that slurping from anywhere

 

[Kacho]

"Listed alphabetically"

lmao...

 

[DryvBy]

To be fair, units sold has a max range of 100. No one buys games on Xbox.

 

[adamsapple]

I recognise that slurping from anywhere

I'm glad it made you feel nostalgic.

But it's just a list of games that did well, I don't think they're getting any real trophies or anything like that.