5 Games That Were Surprisingly Xbox Console Exclusives

Over the past few years, Xbox has, at times, struggled to match PlayStation and Nintendo in terms of exclusive games. That hasn’t always been the case, as several fan-favorite series actually started life as Xbox console exclusives. Below, you’ll find a list of five such games that, given their current popularity, you might be surprised to learn started as Xbox-only games. Of course, many of them also launched on PC, but they never came to Xbox’s console competitors, though most of them would eventually make the jump when their sequels hit.

Here are five surprising Xbox console exclusives.

5) The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Elder Scrolls has always been a favorite series on PC, but Morrowind is when the series really started to break through to a more mainstream audience. Part of that was because Bethesda decided to launch Morrowind on the original Xbox, opening it up to a new playerbase that didn’t play PC games.

Granted, the Xbox port wasn’t quite as technically impressive as the PC version, but for Bethesda’s first major console release, it was more than solid. Although it may have lagged visually and could not use mods, it was still the open-ended masterpiece that players loved. Plus, it opened the door for Bethesda to bring future games to consoles, something that’s proved very fruitful in the decades since.

4) The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

The Witcher 2 launched on PC in May 2011, but Xbox 360 owners wouldn’t get to dive into the Enhanced Edition until April 2012. Having nearly a year to iron out the kinks of the PC version was a massive boon for developer CD Projekt Red. Not only did the updated version include a ton of fixes, but it also added over four hours of gameplay and 36 minutes of cutscenes to help tell the story.

Having a polished version of the RPG hit helped open the door for CD Projekt Red to continue working on consoles moving forward. Granted, the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 left fans with a bad taste in their mouths, but they’ll still line up for The Witcher 4 because the developer has proven it’s willing to put in the work to fix a poorly received launch.

3) Left 4 Dead

Given the overwhelming popularity of Left 4 Dead and its sequel, you’d think it had been released on everything. After all, The Orange Box (which includes Half-Life 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2) eventually made its way to PlayStation 3 just a few months after launching on PC and Xbox 360.

That said, Left 4 Dead never made the jump. One of the reasons for that is the difficulty with developing games on the PS3’s Cell Processing architecture. By comparison, the 360 was a breeze, making porting the PC game relatively simple. In fact, Gabe Newell and Valve were so frustrated by the PS3 that The Orange Box‘s port was handled by EA UK instead of Valve itself.

2) Call of Duty 2

Call of Duty 2 is a weird duck. The 2005 game was an Xbox 360 launch game that came out about a month after it was released on PC. Critically, the 360 version outdid the PC version, with reviewers praising Call of Duty 2‘s AI, realism, and campaign. It sold 200,000 units on the 360 within its first week, making it one of the more popular launch games on the system.

What’s strange about it is that it never came to a Sony console. On the one hand, it’s not too weird for Activision to sign an exclusivity agreement, but on the other, the publisher re-released Call of Duty 1 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2009. That game was originally PC-only, but they never did the same for Call of Duty 2. For what it’s worth, you could play it on mobile platforms in 2006, so you might’ve been able to play on a Sony Ericsson.

1) Mass Effect

The first Mass Effect game launched on Xbox 360 in November 2007. Developer BioWare had previously partnered with Xbox for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, so the exclusivity wasn’t too surprising at the time.

What is a bit weird is that BioWare released Mass Effect 2 on PlayStation 3 less than a year after it came out on Xbox 360, while Mass Effect 3‘s PS3 version came out on the same day as the 360 version. However, the first Mass Effect wasn’t ported to PS3 until late 2012. Considering how important player choice is to the series, it’s bizarre that players could dive into both sequels before the first game ever launched on a Sony console.

Since then, BioWare has gone away from exclusivity and staggered releases. Whenever the next Mass Effect launches, it should come to everything on the same day. Hopefully, it’s much better than Mass Effect: Andromeda.

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