Welcome to the first instalment of my top 5 video game IP/Franchises series. In this series I will discuss the best/most important IP for each major video game publisher and rank them from 1-5. 1 being the top. This one will focus on Xbox. Much has changed for Xbox over the last 5 years since Phil Spencer was promoted to Executive Vice President of Gaming, and had this article been written prior to then, it would have been a much easier top 5 to pick. For all those wondering, mixed with my personal preferences, other factors carrying weight in deciding this top 5 are: Commercial success, critical success, long term engagement, importance to the growth of gaming and what they have done for Xbox and Bethesda.
Starting from bottom to top
Number 5… Gears
Gears – Gears of War, now known as just ‘Gears’, is a franchise that has become synonymous with Xbox. Debuting on Xbox during the time of the Xbox 360 originally but from Epic Games, Gears is now in the capable hands of the Coalition Studio. Often referred to by Xbox fans as the work-horse studio of Xbox Games Studios. The Coalition are masters of the Unreal Engine. Such is the studio’s proficiency with Unreal, that they have worked together with Epic Games and other key partners on the stunning Matrix Unreal Engine 5 demo.
But I digress back to Gears. It launched in 2006 as an original trilogy starring grizzled, weather-beaten soldier Marcus Fenix. Marcus and team would shoot and tear-up alien monsters, using a machine gun with a chain-saw on the end. Gears 4 and 5 passed the torch to Kate, JD and others but maintaining what made Gears, Gears. When it first launched, Gears transcended the corridor 3rd person shooter. Like Halo, it is a long-term Xbox franchise and continues to be a commercial and critical success for Xbox. More recent iterations have seen the franchise grow out from the traditional ‘corridor shooter’ to explore more ‘open world hub’ elements, to mixed reception. But it was generally seen as a successful evolution of the franchise with optimism for further growth and improvement in future games. I can put Gears’ continued success down to beautiful (if not somewhat horrific) graphics, tight and enjoyable gameplay, great storytelling and consistent levels of polish.
Number 4… Fallout
Fallout – The Microsoft Acquisition of Bethesda definitely made picking the top 5 much more difficult. Such is the quality and depth of Bethesda Game Studios games that I was compelled to put Fallout on this list. Originally created by Black Isle Studio, Fallout was seen as a spiritual successor to Wasteland. Since the IP was acquired by Bethesda the game evolved into an action RPG and has accumulated a massive following. The rich game lore and post-apocalyptic action role playing gameplay, catapulted Fallout into one of the biggest video game IPs of the time.
Like other notable Bethesda Game Studios games (and Obsidian Entertainment) Fallout has a deep level of interactions players can have with the world. It’s hand-crafted quests, voice acting quality and storytelling are rivalled by almost none in the industry bar other Bethesda Game Studios games (I swear I’m not that big a BGS fanboy). The most recent Fallout game, Fallout 76 has many widely publicises issues. Rightly drawing criticism. Despite these issues, Bethesda Game Studios continued to support the game and can be seen as successful for them, however I do not expect them to make another MMO style game in a hurry. The biggest concern I think fans of the franchise have is ‘when we can expect to next see a Fallout game?’ Now that Fallout and Bethesda Game Studios are under the Microsoft umbrella, many fans are crying out for another studio to fill the Fallout shaped void. Todd Howard recently indicated to IGN’s Ryan McCaffery that they currently have no intention to license out the IP to another studio. Fallout fans will just have to wait, I guess.
Number 3… Halo
Halo – Halo, a game originally from Bungee, now under the care of 343 Industries. Halo became synonymous with Xbox right from the very beginning, when it launched with the original Xbox back in 2001. The game’s innovative design and multiplayer capabilities brought things to video games that had never been seen before, and it was really Halo that allowed Xbox Live to come to life.
Since it’s launch Halo has continued to be a commercial and critical success for Xbox and has gone on to build up a loyal fanbase, with intricate in-game lore. I think many people will agree that Halo is one of the key reasons that Xbox was able to survive a tricky launch, and the franchise continues to grow even to this day. While it doesn’t have audiences quite the size of some of the other Xbox franchises out there, it is certainly worthy of it’s place in the top 5. If you want to learn more about the beginnings of Halo, watching the Xbox documentary, Power On is definitely worth-while.
Number 2… Elder Scrolls
Elder Scrolls – I feel safe in saying that, The Elder Scrolls is to Bethesda Game Studios what Halo is to Team Xbox. It’s their baby, it’s their saviour, and it is to what they owe their considerable reputation. Not to sell everything else short, they have done other fantastic games, but Elder Scrolls is what I would call Bethesda Game Studios bread and butter. Since The Elder Scrolls Arena released in 1994, 4 more mainline Elder Scrolls games have released, and each have garnered incredible amounts of critical and commercial success. Indeed Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim have all eared Game Of The Year awards. Elder Scrolls Online by Zenimax Online Studios has, unlike it’s Fallout MMO counterpart, been a huge success although was not without it’s issues at launch either.
Like Fallout the Elder Scrolls world has deep and rich lore but instead in a medieval style, high fantasy setting. The more modern games have an unparalleled level of player interaction with the world, and despite the most recent Elder Scrolls game releasing over 10 years ago now, they still hold up comparatively well. I would go as far to say, Skyrim is still seen as the benchmark that open world RPGs are compared to. Criticisms that have been made of more recent Elder Scrolls games is the dialling back of some key RPG mechanics. Elder Scrolls fans should be excited to hear Todd Howard say that Starfield – Bethesda’s next open world RPG epic – is going to contain heavier RPG mechanics, such as choice and consequence. With Elder Scrolls 6 currently in early development, and to be the game to release after Starfield, this should please hardcore fans of the franchise. That said, if it is to continue its growth in popularity, they will have to balance this in a way that it still hits the mass market accessibility that Skyrim provided.
Minecraft I mean, Drum roll please…
Number 1… Minecraft
Minecraft – What can I say about Mojang Studio’s genius creation? Minecraft, like Pokémon, yo-yos, Fortnite et, al. is a phenomenon. Minecraft’s brilliance is in it’s perceived simplicity, but its layers of complexity that are not widely known enough, considering Minecraft’s immense popularity. Certainly, if you are Microsoft and Xbox you will be looking at Minecraft as (on paper) your most valuable IP. Elder Scrolls and Fallout have huge numbers of engagement, YouTube channels based on them, Wikis, along with being regularly streamed. But Minecraft is on another level.
I have put many, many hours into Minecraft myself. I really enjoy playing both in survival and creative modes, and have been impressed with what I have managed to build… Until I look online. People have built some of the craziest things such as Death Stars, entire true-to-scale city skylines (eg NYC) and a Gameboy that actually plays Pokémon Red IN GAME! Honestly, my mind boggles at some of the stuff I have seen. Minecraft also has real world uses for planning and development of cities and buildings. It really does deserve way more praise than it gets from some areas of the video game community.
Despite all of this success… I have some considerable gripes with Mojang, Microsoft and their management of Minecraft. Mainly the announcement of all these features and updates to come to Minecraft that NEVER make it. Super Duper Graphics pack… Ray Tracing… Albeit the latter is available on PC, but it was promised for consoles prior to the launch of Xbox Series consoles, shown off and tested by Digital Foundry. This gained real hype only for Microsoft to go radio silent on it.
Top 5 video game IPs to continue for other publishers?
So those are my top 5 best/most important Xbox IP/Franchises. It was very tough choosing just 5, especially with Bethesda in the mix. Future instalments of this series will include PlayStation, Nintendo, Sega and all the other big publishers out there, so keep an eye out for future articles. Do you guys agree with my choices? What would you choose differently? Let me know on social media and/or in the comments section. Some notable absentees that I would like to pay tribute to: Forza, Doom, Fable, Killer Instinct, Banjo Kazooie. Less than 24 hours after this article went live Microsoft dropped the news bomb that they intend to acquire Activision Blizzard. For the full Gamerhub article on it see here. Of course, I will be sure to update this article to include the new IP that will soon be included under the Xbox umbrella, after writing the other articles in the series.
