The Best First-Person Shooters on the Xbox

If the 5th console generation marked the initial steps toward first-person shooters being playable on non-PC platforms, then it was the 6th generation that guaranteed the FPS' prominence as one of the most popular gaming genres. No 6th generation console was more at the forefront of that effort than the Xbox, whose library of first-person shooters helped define the console and move the genre forward significantly. Not only did the Xbox give the world Halo, it also helped to make franchises like Call of Duty a household name while helping usher console gamers into the world of competitive online multiplayer via Xbox Live. The world of console gaming was never the same. Accordingly, looking at the roster of the best first-person shooters on the Xbox is akin to viewing a "hall of fame" for the genre.

Besides the killer app that Halo would prove to be for both Microsoft and the future of the Xbox ecosystem, the Xbox was also the only 6th-gen console to receive ports of some of the then-groundbreaking first-person shooters on PC. The sequels to Half-Life, Deus Ex, and Thief were hugely influential games in the first-person shooter genre, and the only platform to get these titles outside their PC originals was Microsoft's Xbox. And when it comes to first-person shooters that were cross-platform releases on all three 6th-gen consoles, the Xbox versions of these games were the superior versions almost by default, thanks to two key elements: the raw horsepower of the Xbox rendering them in superior audiovisual fidelity, and the ability to seamlessly play them online via Xbox Live.

• Release Date — November 7, 2006
• Developer — Treyarch
• Publisher — Activision
• Review Aggregate Score — 82% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 67% (Mixed or Average)

Following the studio's debut crack at the franchise with Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, Activision would hand Treyarch the keys to the World War II-era games in the Call of Duty franchise while series creator Infinity Ward was hard at work on the revolutionary Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. As such, it would be Treyarch, and not Infinity Ward, who would deliver the third mainline game in the series, with Call of Duty 3 releasing as a cross-gen title on both the Xbox and Xbox 360.

Though the Xbox 360 version is slightly superior in terms of its visuals and performance, it's no less impressive to see how great Call of Duty 3 looks and plays as one of the later AAA releases in the Xbox's lifespan. The fact that it includes 16-player multiplayer makes it one of the more essential World War II-themed shooters on the console.

• Release Date — May 25, 2004
• Developer — Ion Storm
• Publisher — Eidos Interactive
• Review Aggregate Score — 82% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 75% (Generally Favorable)

The third game in the Thief series that almost single-handedly helped create the Immersive Sim genre (along with another Warren Spector-helmed series, Deus Ex), Thief: Deadly Shadows is actually a bit of a departure from both Thief: The Dark Age and Thief II. While those first two titles restricted players to a first-person perspective, Deadly Shadows is the first Thief game to allow players to seamlessly swap between first and third-person perspectives to allow for advanced stealth mechanics such as sticking to walls or hanging from ledges. Ultimately, though, most of the important actions related to combat and infiltration will still require them to play in Thief: Deadly Shadows' first-person perspective, making it two impressive PC ports on the Xbox to blend first-person shooting and immersive sim elements.

• Release Date — January 25, 2005
• Developer — Oddworld Inhabitants
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 81% (Generally Favorable)

For a series that began as a 2D side-scrolling puzzle platformer, it was a complete surprise to see Oddworld pivot to a first and third-person shooter during the 6th console generation. Thankfully, though, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath contains the trademark quality writing, humor, and visual fidelity that made the first two Oddworld games featuring Abe the Mudokon such cult classics, and the shooting in Stranger's Wrath is surprisingly good considering it was Oddworld Inhabitants' first take on the genre. The definitive element of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, and one that ties in beautifully with the series' trademark off-the-wall humor, is the game's "Live Ammunition" system, which allows players to pick up various small animals in the environment and launch them at enemies using the Stranger's signature crossbow.

• Release Date — May 6, 2003
• Developer — Grey Matter Studios, Nerve Software
• Publisher — Activision
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)

The PS2 version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein would need to make several technical concessions that ultimately dragged it down from matching the PC original, but the Xbox version of the title is almost a perfect 1:1 port of one of the 2000s' most underrated shooters. The Xbox version — subtitled Tides of War, unlike the PS2's Operation Resurrection — retains the excellent single-player campaign of the original Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and it also includes the atypical multiplayer mode that made the PC version so original. Unlike most multiplayer modes in FPS games that stick to the traditional Deathmatch or Capture the Flag match types, Return to Castle Wolfenstein has an objective-based multiplayer mode where players are split between Axis and Allied teams, complete with different weaponry, class loadouts, and more.

• Release Date — March 22, 2005
• Developer — Free Radical Design
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)

It says a lot about Free Radical Design's TimeSplitters games that the second and third entries in the series have made their way into our lists of the best first-person shooters on each 6th-generation console. Truthfully, both TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect are that rare breed of first-person shooter that includes both an excellent single-player story mode and one of the more impressive multiplayer suites. In the case of TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, that includes a robust map-making feature that's vastly improved from TimeSplitters 2 and allows for potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay on custom-made multiplayer maps. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Xbox version of Future Perfect is also the best-looking and running TimeSplitters game in the entire series, and it still looks great when playing it today on a Series X/S.

• Release Date — September 27, 2005
• Developer — Ubisoft Montreal
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 77% (Generally Favorable)

Crytek practically blew the gaming world away with the original Far Cry (much like it did a few years later when it helped melt some GPUs courtesy of Crysis), so it was almost a given that the developers would try to find a way to port this surprise PC hit to console. Ubisoft Montreal, future stewards of the Far Cry franchise, would get their first crack at the series with the Xbox console port of the original Far Cry, and Far Cry Instincts is a commendable effort toward squeezing down the impressively large and open-ended Far Cry onto a console. While it does lose a lot of the open-ended gameplay that helped define the PC original, Far Cry Instincts still has one of the more enjoyable FPS campaigns, and it's the best console port of the original Far Cry behind the Xbox 360 version, Far Cry Instincts: Predator.

• Release Date — December 2, 2003
• Developer — Ion Storm
• Publisher — Eidos Interactive
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 73% (Mixed or Average)

Today, Deus Ex: Invisible War gets a lot of flak for being arguably the worst game in the Deus Ex franchise. And while that unfavorable distinction does hold a grain of truth, it can't be overstated how impressive the game's Xbox port was at the time of release. Unlike the original Deus Ex, which would release first on PC before coming to the PlayStation 2 roughly 2 years later, Deus Ex: Invisible War's PC and Xbox versions were developed side-by-side, resulting in a PC game that lacked some of the complexity of its predecessor but a console FPS that was incredibly forward-thinking and innovative for its time.

There weren't many first-person shooters with the kind of nonlinear exploration and problem-solving that Deus Ex: Invisible War brought to the table, and its RPG progression made getting to its endgame one of the more satisfying power fantasies available in the Xbox's first-person shooter library.

• Release Date — October 28, 2003
• Developer — Ubisoft Montreal
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Review Aggregate Score — 86% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 76% (Generally Favorable)

The Rainbow Six franchise began as a tense mix between strategy and shooting that had major success on PC, helping to establish the Tom Clancy line of titles as a mainstay in gaming for over 20 years. But by the time Rainbow Six 3 rolled around, the team at Ubisoft (which had acquired the rights to the Tom Clancy franchise from previous developer Red Storm Entertainment) saw an opportunity to bridge the gap between the old-school tactical approach of the original Rainbow Six games with a more modern first-person shooter, and thus Rainbow Six 3 was born. The Xbox version of the title strips back even more of the strategic planning that was already dialed down a bit in the PC release, and it serves as a perfect middle ground between the original and modern eras of the Rainbow Six games as a result.

• Release Date — March 1, 2005
• Developer — Gearbox Software
• Publisher — Ubisoft
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)

The Brothers in Arms games would eventually become multi-platform releases, but the debut of the series' first (and arguably, greatest) game, Road to Hill 30, was on the Xbox. Unsurprisingly, the power of the Xbox helped it maintain its place as the best-looking and best-running version of one of the greatest World War II shooters ever made. Alongside its excellent shooting and squad-based tactics, Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30 happens to feature one of the most compelling and darkly realistic World War II narratives ever put in a video game, making it a strong contender for being not just one of the best shooters on the Xbox, but one of the best first-person shooters, period.

• Release Date — October 8, 2002
• Developer — Free Radical Design
• Publisher — Eidos Interactive
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 74% (Mixed or Average)

Just like its sequel, TimeSplitters 2 remains a timeless reminder of how excellent the TimeSplitters series was in terms of both its single-player story mode and its phenomenal split-screen multiplayer, and the Xbox version of TimeSplitters 2 is arguably the best-looking one, even if it somehow didn't review as well as the original PlayStation 2 release. The Xbox's 4 controller ports made it an ideal console for local co-op or competitive multiplayer in first-person shooter games, and TimeSplitters 2 arguably had the best competitive multiplayer on the console other than Halo during the early years of the Xbox's lifespan, cementing it as a must-have in the system's library. Like Future Perfect, TimeSplitters 2 is one of the few shooters on this list where the original Xbox version is still playable on modern Xbox Series X/S consoles, and it holds up incredibly well in a modern context.

• Release Date — April 4, 2005
• Developer — id Software, Vicarious Visions
• Publisher — Activision, Aspyr Media
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)

The Doom series has always had horror undertones ever since the original game, but Doom 3 dialed those elements up to 11, briefly transforming the series from a fast-paced "boomer shooter" to a more methodical and slower-paced blend of first-person shooting and survival horror. It was an experiment that didn't last long (with the series eventually course-correcting with a soft reboot in 2016's excellent DOOM), which makes the Xbox release of Doom 3 all the more significant in the console's first-person shooter library. Tense, difficult, and dark, Doom 3 requires players to carefully search their surroundings, use a flashlight instead of a weapon in sections where light is limited, and come face-to-face with horrific reimaginings of the series' most iconic monsters. Quite possibly the scariest game on the Xbox, and one of its great shooters to boot.

• Release Date — June 1, 2004
• Developer — Starbreeze Studios, Tigon Studios
• Publisher — Vivendi Universal Games
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)

The movie tie-in game was something that still had a bit of a negative connotation at the time of Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay's release. But, surprisingly, Butcher Bay bucked all notions of mediocrity to serve as one of the great first-person shooters in the Xbox library, and it also happened to contain its fair share of stealth and immersive sim elements that set it apart from other games in the genre.

Released just about a week before the Chronicles of Riddick film, Escape From Butcher Bay puts players in the shoes of the titular anti-hero from Pitch Black as he tries to figure out a way to escape the notorious prison the game gets its name from, and it practically never misses a beat in its execution of that premise. The stealth, melee combat, and shooting are all spectacular in Butcher Bay, and it's worth playing even if you have zero interest in the Chronicles of Riddick IP.

• Release Date — November 15, 2005
• Developer — Valve
• Publisher — Valve
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)
• User Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)

We've already touched on some of the other impressive PC-to-Xbox FPS ports, but the greatest of them all is the console's version of Half-Life 2. Not because it does anything drastically different from the PC original, but because it somehow faithfully adapts one of the all-time greatest games into a format not originally thought possible, standing as a major technical achievement on the 6th-generation's most powerful console. Half-Life 2 on the Xbox makes barely any concessions over the PC original outside of maybe having a lower framerate and resolution in comparison to how gaming computers of the era would have handled the game, and the content is the same near-perfect campaign that Half-Life 2 has always been. Throw in the ability to play the campaign in co-op, and Half-Life 2 on Xbox was an essential pick-up for any FPS fan.

• Release Date — November 9, 2004
• Developer — Bungie
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Review Aggregate Score — 95% (Universal Acclaim)
• User Score — 87% (Generally Favorable)

Online functionality and competitive multiplayer are so deeply ingrained into the gaming experience today that it can be difficult to imagine a time in which those things were new and innovative, unless you happened to have lived through that time. So while today's gamers are accustomed to every FPS having seamless online multiplayer and matchmaking, those things were an incredible novelty restricted to PC players at the time of Halo 2's release, which made its online console multiplayer a bona fide revolutionary experience.

Launching alongside Halo 2 was the Xbox Live service, which took the previous Halo's 16-player LAN parties, which required four Xboxes, four copies of Halo, and four TVs, and finally allowed them to be enjoyed by up to 4 players on a single screen. But Halo 2's multiplayer was just half of the game's draw, as its campaign significantly upped the production values, setpiece moments, and surprising narrative twists over its predecessor, including one of the most notorious cliffhanger endings in gaming history.

• Release Date — November 15, 2001
• Developer — Bungie
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Review Aggregate Score — 97% (Universal Acclaim)
• User Score — 86% (Generally Favorable)

While Halo 2 would blow the doors off console online gaming and help to establish it as an essential part of the first-person shooter genre moving forward, none of its innovations would have been possible without the Xbox's killer-app and greatest first-person shooter: Halo: Combat Evolved. If Doom was the first game in the first-person shooter genre to help popularize and redefine it for a new generation, then Halo was the next major pillar in the FPS' evolution, delivering one of the most spectacular story campaigns of any first-person shooter of the era (completely playable in co-op, no less) alongside the best split-screen multiplayer mode since 1997's GoldenEye 007.

Lots of people doubted Microsoft's place as a new entry into the console market and competition against established companies like Sony and Nintendo, and Halo: Combat Evolved was the bargaining chip that allowed Xbox to not just be a competitor, but a leader in the FPS space right as the genre was only continuing to grow in popularity. The Xbox was the best 6th-generation console for first-person shooters, and the original Halo was the first step toward that distinction.