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

Great games are at the core of our mission to share the joy and camaraderie of gaming with people everywhere. Today, just about any screen can serve as an Xbox, and these screens are brought to life by an exceptional range of games developed by talented teams around the world. These creatives are responsible for crafting immersive gaming experiences that captivate and motivate players of every age group. So, to show appreciation for these creators and highlight the games you loved in 2024, we’re proud to unveil this year’s Xbox Excellence Awards.

Considering the release of over a thousand games across Xbox consoles, PCs, and the cloud each year, selecting award recipients might sound like a daunting task. Instead of relying solely on a judging panel, the Excellence Awards are centered around your interaction with Xbox over the past year. We’ve categorized the awards into four key areas that reflect the passion, engagement, and affection you have for these games. Here are the categories:

• Store Rating: This honors the top-rated content on our platforms from 2024, requiring at least 500 ratings.

• Player Engagement: Recognizes games that garnered the highest average playtime per player during the first six weeks post-release.

• Daily Active Users: Celebrates games, expansions, or substantial updates that achieved the most single-day active users in 2024. You might recognize some titles from previous years—a testament to their impactful updates last year.

• Units Sold: Highlights the best-selling content across Xbox and Microsoft stores.

The final compilation is a truly diverse array of titles, crafted by teams ranging from small groups to massive studios, hailing from 15 different countries. The titles for each category, listed alphabetically, can be found below.

Store Rating: Balatro, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, Botany Manor, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Little Kitty, Big City, Nobody Wants to Die, Poppy Playtime: Chapter 1, 2, 3, Return to Grace, Unicorn Overlord

Player Engagement: Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Dragon’s Dogma 2, EA Sports College Football 25, F1 Manager 2024, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Persona 3 Reload, Still Wakes the Deep, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Daily Active Users: Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Dead Island 2, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, EA Sports FC 25, Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, Fortnite, Forza Horizon 5, Grand Theft Auto Online, Marvel Rivals, Minecraft, Palworld, Phasmophobia, Rocket League, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Units Sold: 7 Days to Die, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, EA Sports College Football 25, EA Sports FC 25, EA Sports Madden NFL 25, Farming Simulator 25, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, MLB The Show 24, NBA 2K25, NHL 25, Path of Exile 2, Skull and Bones, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl, WWE 2K24

Producers and distributors will soon have their trophies in hand, and we can’t wait to see how they celebrate the recognition! Thinking about joining the ranks of the many players who turned these games into award-winning hits? Head over to the Xbox Store to explore our lineup of 2024 Xbox Excellence Award winners.