Announcing the Xbox Excellence Awards: Celebrating the Studios Behind Your Favorite 2024 Games

Here at Xbox, we’re passionate about delivering incredible games to bring the joy of gaming to people everywhere. Now, more than ever, countless screens can transform into an Xbox. Lighting up these screens are the amazing games crafted by talented developers from all over the globe. These creators have the unique ability to concoct memorable gaming experiences that captivate and inspire players of all ages. To express our gratitude to these creators and highlight the games that players adored in 2024, we’re excited to announce the recipients of the 2024 Xbox Excellence Awards.

Each year, over a thousand games find their way onto Xbox consoles, PCs, and the cloud. While it might be easy to assemble a panel to pick the best, the Excellence Awards aim to celebrate how you, the players, engaged with Xbox throughout the year. We’ve zeroed in on four main categories that reflect players’ enthusiasm, engagement, and appreciation for these games. These categories are:

• Store Rating: This recognizes the highest-rated content across our stores that debuted in 2024, each game having at least 500 ratings.
• Player Engagement: These are the games with the most average playtime per player during their first six weeks of release.
• Daily Active Users: This category highlights games, expansions, or major updates with the largest single-day user numbers in 2024. Some titles might not be 2024 releases but made their mark due to important updates.
• Units Sold: Here we look at the top-selling titles across Xbox and Microsoft stores.

The final list showcases a remarkable array of titles, coming from studios as small as a handful of developers to those with thousands, across 15 different countries!

Here’s how the games stack up, listed alphabetically under each category:

• Store Rating:

  • Balatro
  • Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
  • Botany Manor
  • Little Kitty, Big City
  • Persona 3 Reload
  • Phasmophobia
  • Roblox

• Player Engagement:

  • Dragon Age: The Veilguard
  • Dragon’s Dogma 2
  • EA Sports College Football 25
  • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio
  • New World: Aeternum
  • Palworld

• Daily Active Users:

  • Apex Legends
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  • Dead Island 2
  • Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
  • Fall Out 4
  • Rocket League
• Units Sold:
  • 7 Days to Die
  • Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  • EA Sports FC 25
  • Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
  • Grand Theft Auto Online
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Keep an eye out as developers and publishers will soon be receiving their well-deserved trophies. Are you thinking about joining the ranks of players who propelled these games to award status? Check out the collection of games awarded the Xbox Excellence Award for 2024 on the Xbox Store.