There are thousands of games present in the library of Xbox one, but there are few that test your puzzle-solving skills.
Given below are some of the Xbox one puzzle games, which will surely make you scratch your head and make you think hard on how to solve the level. These games are bright, colorful, and have immersive graphics. Thus, you can enjoy them with your family and friends.
Today, we are going to talk about the other genre rather than talking about the first-person shooter and role-playing games that people are more familiar with. Puzzles games are the ones that people might not know or don’t consider much compared to the other two.
Today we will be looking at some of the best Xbox One Puzzle games to test your sharp mind and your precision skills. These games are made to keep you engaged with beautiful graphics and over the top music.
So even if you are not able to complete the puzzle, you will still enjoy playing it.
Best Xbox One Puzzle Games: Our Top Pick 👌👌
1. Inside
Starting with our best pick, we have Inside (Download Here) a game that will make you ask a question like, “What was that thing lurking in the back?” “What are those noises?” “How can I get to that platform?” all these things make your gaming experience a bit more interesting—these are games that you can be placed in the horror genre as well.
But don’t worry, you are not going to find some monsters or ghosts in this game. It’s the story of a boy who is lost as the sun goes down.
He enters a facility which is being used as a ground for the dark project. The puzzles are challenging while still captivating you with the narration and intense action.
The game has won several awards, including the BAFTA Games award, and IGN 10/10 editor’s choice. The game was developed by Playdead developers that are famous for being in providing non-linguistic storytelling in their games.
In this game, you will find that there is not a single dialogue, but the game can tell you an emotionally deep story. Every level of this game is filled with an intense moment with loud background music, making you feel the tension—the horrifying sound of a dog barking at you as you try to find your way out.
The boy is panting and looking to grab some air as he runs from the dog. All these sounds make the game more detailed.
The development team isn’t shy about bringing the best of the puzzles that you can find in a game. As the atmosphere is dark, the puzzles might seem a bit out of place, but they will make you think twice before you do anything or even jump from one end to the other.
The ending of the game is a bit overwhelming, but it’s the journey that is going to stay with you for a long time.
2. Limbo
“Uncertain from the fate of his sister, a child enters the world of Limbo (Download Here).” The game might have been released a long time ago, but if you are looking for a puzzle game that can keep up with all the AAA titles, this is the game you need to play at all costs.
It’s not a game; to be honest, it is a whole experience. The game was developed by the same development company that made Inside, so you know the game has been curated with a lot of hidden details and a fantastic soundtrack.
In addition to this, it has won the Gamespot award for one of the best games in 2010. Along with that, the game has also won the best of IGN 2010 and IGN readers’ choice awards 2010.
Don’t go for the simplicity of the 2D platform, that it could be a monotonous and tiring journey. You will be amazed to see how developers could create such a hauntingly beautiful world with such a small color pallet.
The game design is truly out of this world, and it helps in providing the player with an intricate puzzle that can take some time to understand fully. The overall atmosphere of the game is a bit lonely and sadistic.
There is one thing that is quite common in the world of photography and cinematography. Only the best in their art will take a bold step to make a video or a photo in black and white because color can enhance the viewer’s experience.
But when your artwork is so detailed and marvelous to look at, you don’t need colors to make it look pleasing to the viewer’s eye, and the same goes for this game.
The whole game has two-tone color, black and white. But still, you won’t feel like you need to have colors added to the game because it enhances the mood and the atmosphere that the game is trying to pull on you.
You can feel the suffering and fear of the unknown. It is a game where the darkness rules the world; everything that you see doesn’t have any face. All you see is the silhouette. The life forms you meet in this game are unknown to you, and so are their intentions.
If you are the one who is looking for a game that can tell you a straight storyline with a perfect ending, we would have to break it for you, but this game is not for you.
The experience that you will get from it will be impactful, and you will keep it in your mind for a long time. You will try your best to see the faces that are coming in the game, but you will only see they’re around and never into.
3. The Talos Principle
Talos principle (Download Here) is the prodigy child of Portal 2 and Antichamber, the two-game that are best in their class and have a cult following. It’s a game that is trying to find the balance between religion and rationality.
It will make you excited like a little kid when you start playing it, and it will be one of the best investments of your time on a computer game.
The maps and the puzzles are designed in a way to give you the feel of ancient times, and when you are walking through these maps, you can think about how things used to look back in those days.
The story revolves around the thought process of what intelligence is and how you can compare it with others’ intelligence. But still, the game strictly follows its puzzle base.
This Xbox one puzzle game will provide you more than 19-20 hours of gameplay, which is quite a lot if you are playing a puzzle game. Two ending ones can be achieved in 18 hours, and you need to play for 3 hours more for the second.
We are not going to spoil it, so we recommend trying both of these endings and telling us which one you like the most. The puzzle in the game requires you to be precise in pressing the button for making jumps and dodging the incoming objects.
Most of the puzzles that you are going to find in this game are ideally challenging to solve. But once you get the hang of it, you will soon be able to solve them in a short time.
Even if you are not into puzzle-solving, it is still a fantastic game with one of the best sci-fi stories. If you have played Portal, you will see it does have a resemblance with Portal in terms of puzzles.
If you are a completionist and looking to grab every star that games have to offer you, puzzles can get from being hard to almost hellish, which will take you some hours to solve properly.
It’s a perfect balance of the rise of AI, the philosophy of the olds, and the fall of human society. It will make you question your existence and your place in the universe.
So if you play it, you will have to shut your mouth desperately, so you don’t annoy your friends with its storyline and epic gameplay.
4. Ori And The Blind Forest
You know a game is going to look amazing when it is developed by the collaboration of artists and game developers. Ori and the blind forest (Download Here) is one of the Xbox one puzzle games exclusive to Xbox consoles and windows.
Yes, you can’t play it on the PlayStation. It’s a tale of an orphan who was born to save his kind and be the hero his community needs to fight evil.
If you are looking for a game that is pleasing for the eyes and looks like a moving painting, then Ori and the blind forest is the game for you. Each color in the game comes out so well that each frame of it can be used as the background wallpaper of your desktop.
The story revolves around the forest, which is dying. In addition to this, a series of storms led to the devastation of the forest and took the young child away from his people. Once she opens his eyes, he’s in a completely new environment and feels all alone.
But then he got introduced to one of the animals living in the forest, and they became best friends. But the story only starts from here. Now, as a young kid, you need to find your way back home and protect them from the darkness.
The first few minutes of the game will surely make you cry if you want something you and your kids will love to play, you should give it a try.
In our line of work, we have to play games to provide you with a review. Some of them are tedious, and we don’t want to play it. Some are bad because of their gaming mechanics. But when it comes to Ori and the blind forest, our reviewers were utterly lost in the world the Moon studios have built for this game.
It does get hard in some places and as hard as dark souls, but you are not going to face a monster in the middle of the game, which you have to kill by shooting him right in the face. It has more to do with twitch-oriented navigation systems.
There are sections in the game where you don’t have to fight the boss, but you need to move away from it while still keeping yourself alive. That’s what makes it different from other games.
5. Life Is Strange
If you are into stories, then Life is strange (Download Here) is a perfect Xbox one puzzle game for you. The game has won BAFTA for the best storytelling in games. In addition to this, it has been awarded the hall of fame Gold on 26th Feb 2016.
This game will take you on a ride filled with emotions that you can’t resist yourself from shedding some tears, and It doesn’t matter how manly you are; this game will undoubtedly make you cry more than once.
If you are going to play the first, you will be hooked to its storyline and end up buying all the remaining fur parts. Each part has its chapter and comes with an ending.
So even if you don’t want to buy all 4 episodes of this game, it is okay. The game tells you a story of kids that manipulates the time to change the events that are going to happen in the future.
But that’s the fun part, each change can lead to a new future and things can quickly turn out to be too bad for you. Once you change the future, there is no going back, so you have to be very careful with your decisions.
It is a game that has some of the elements of the puzzle, but it sure does concentrate more on storytelling. It will look like you are watching an animated series, but here you have control of what is going to happen next in the storyline.
The cartoonish design makes the game stand out from the rest of the games that are present on our list. The art style is amazing, and you will feel like it is coming straight from the comic book. The official soundtrack has a lot to give credit.
Because of the music, you can feel emotions and the sadness that the characters are dealing with within the game. You know you are in for a great adventure when the game’s home screen has incredible guitar music playing in the background.
The message that the games tell you with the gameplay is simple, and you are not allowed to change the past no matter how bad it was. Likewise, it tells you what is going to happen will happen. You can’t ignore it.
All you can do is ready yourself to embrace the consequences. Here’s one tip we would like to give to you. When you are done with the game do listen to the director’s commentary to appreciate the game’s story writing and dialogue delivery truly.
6. The Witness
If there is one thing you will be asking yourself once you finish this game is, how would you be able to delete its memory from your mind to play it again? The Witness (Download Here) is a game that throws you in this world, which is utterly unknown to you.
But we recommend this game only to those people who are into puzzle-solving to the core. This game is not easy for solving the puzzle, as it can be too difficult to solve at times.
To solve all the puzzles in this game and finish it, you need to be in complete control of all your senses. Yes, we are talking about senses in a game.
These Xbox one puzzle games have pretty child-friendly graphics, which will make your kids want to play this game even more. It gives you a vibe of Minecraft and gives us one child who doesn’t like building his own house in Minecraft.
Even if you don’t try to solve the story of who you are and what the place is, you can still finish the game, but we ask you to do it as the exploration in this game is quite fun and entertaining.
If you challenge the game’s main mechanics, you will see all the puzzles are not so hard to solve but require you to have some sharp eyes to see the clues.
The game has a hidden mystery, which can help you create your own story as you proceed. This way, it can help your child with their creativity.
This game follows an open environment, so if you are one of those who like to complete a game to full 100%. You need to back off from some puzzles if you are not able to solve them at the start.
Because puzzles that are required to be solved at the very late game are open at the beginning, and when you are exploring the map, you can stumble on them quickly.
The variety of puzzles and the riddles you got in this game to solve are countless, so you won’t be bored solving the same kind of puzzle again and again.
7. Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons
A game (Download Here) that is directed by one of the best Swedish filmmakers is undoubtedly going to have one of the best storylines that you might have witnessed. The game is set in a world, which is overflowing with personality.
The journey is quite immersive while still being emotional, and it is one of the rare gems that we want you never to miss. In most of the games, you have to guide just one character throughout the whole story.
But here we have two protagonists that you need to control to finish the game. But don’t worry, both of them will help each other, and the game is a lot more fun than you think it is. You get to control both the brothers at the same time with both of your joysticks present on your Xbox one controllers.
It is one of the Xbox one puzzle games which is beautifully rendered to provide you with amazing graphics. It is a story about two boys who went out in the world to find a cure to their father’s ailing disease.
In their quest, you get to know the different personalities of these brothers. One is strong while the other one is weak. One is smart from the head, and the other things from his heart.
When you are playing this game, we are sure you are going to find yourself rooting for one of the brothers. The graphics of this game are so beautiful that even without uttering a single dialogue, this game tells its story to you in terms of the graphic novel.
The game is short, but it is filled with human emotions and tragedies, something we all face at one time or another.
Throughout the game, you will come across puzzles that you need to solve by controlling one or the other brother, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. The game will tell you its story as you traverse through it, solving puzzles and completing the areas.
It’s a game that is small in its gameplay, but when it comes to hitting the emotional spots, it gets the job correctly done. It is sure to play if you love Xbox one puzzle game.
8. Never Alone
This game (Download Here) has charm, and you will fall in love with its characters as soon as you start playing it. This game has won some significant awards in terms of changing the way gamers see platform gaming.
Released in late 2014, the graphics of this game still holds even in 2020. The story depicts the narration of Nuna and his fox as they travel the cold world in search of the eternal blizzard, threatening to kill everything that is living in the world of Luna and the fox.
When you first start playing it, you will think it’s the same side scroll game that you have seen for such a long time, but as soon as you start to control the character, you will release this as something different and a bit more intimate.
It teaches you the way of the tribes’ people that are living in North Alaska. As you move from one chapter to the other, you unlock native customs, and what it means is, you are reclaiming and rescuing the fragments of Life the old way of living—the Life which is melting away in the ocean. The result of each rescue can be beautiful, full of hope, and sometimes sad.
On the other hand, it’s a tale about global warming and how our way of living in a metropolis is affecting the Life that is beyond our knowledge.
The main narrative is drawn from the old folk story of the Inupiaq folk legend of Kunuuksaayuka, in which the young boy goes on a mission to find the endless blizzard. The game teaches us to preserve the past and respect the present.
It is a masterpiece that proves that even Xbox One puzzle games can be used as an art form to facilitate a process of change in the minds of the individual.
9. Portal 2
It is another game from Valve which has a cult following in the gaming world. This Xbox one puzzle game provides you with the freedom to construct your puzzles, which you and your friend can then try to solve.
The original game Portal has won more than 70 gaming awards in its year of release. As a result, Valve needed to come up with something as good as Portal, and the result was Portal 2 (Download Here).
If you are not into a co-op, you can still play the game in a single-player campaign where you will be introduced to new characters along with a completely new storyline and music.
As a protagonist, you get to explore some hidden and never-known areas of the Aperture science lab. Your friend GlaDOS returns in the sequel, and he occasionally tries to murder you in this game instead of helping you out.
With Portal 2, the developers have provided players with more accessibility and control over mind-bending puzzles. The soundtrack is a bit twisted.
You will feel like it is comforting in someplace, and then it turns into scary background music, which will make you think twice before you make a leap or open another portal.
The jaw-dropping spectacle as you play the game will keep you thoroughly immersed and entertained. It hits right in the spot of being the perfectly balanced game in between gameplay and witty dialogues.
10. Unravel
Last on our list is Unravel (Download Here); it’s a physics-based story puzzle platform that shows a story of Yarny, a character that is made from a single thread of Yarn. The game gives you his control and takes you on an epic journey, which is, in all terms, larger than Life.
As it happens with a lot of Xbox One puzzle games, you fell in love with their soundtrack, the same goes for the Uravel.
As a yarny, you will be exploring the world which is unknown to you, and as the Yarn is about to end, you will find another roll of it just to continue your journey to the next point.
The tail of your character can be used to make a bridge, a slingshot, rope, etc. with these abilities, and you will be solving puzzles. If you are one who loves games with great detail in terms of graphics, this is just the right thing for you.
Each frame of this can be used to showcase amazingly colorful games. To play this game, you need to have an origin from EA. We wish there were another way to start the game without launching the Origin software simply, but we are not able to find any.
Conclusion
So there you have it top 10 Xbox One Puzzle Games for you to play and make use of your sharp mind and skills. All of these games are available on both Xbox One and Xbox One X.
if you want to enjoy the game in the detail of 4k, we would like you to go for Xbox One X as it is the most powerful console of all time till now. It will provide you an excellent frame rate at a fantastic resolution to please your eyes.
There are a lot of genres in the gaming world. Some people prefer playing first-person shooters, like Call of Duty and Battlefield, where you aim to kill the guy in front of you to win. Others prefer to play games that have roleplay mechanics in them.
These games can take hours and hours to complete, and you will still be left with side missions and quests for you to explore. One of the great examples of this game is Witcher 3 that came in 2015.
That game changed the concept of an open world. Puzzles games are rich in colors, graphics, storytelling, and emotions. These games don’t have high graphical requirements like the ones of your Call of Duty and Witcher 3 but these games are artistically made to give you the best of the experience from shorter gameplay.
Some of the best games that we have played that have a gut-wrenching story are the ones that are in the 2D format. So don’t ever doubt about games that come in 2D format.
Most of these Xbox One puzzle games use the same side scroll puzzle-solving mechanics, but each of them has their unique story to make them play again and again.
In addition to this, the soundtracks will make you think twice about saying anything bad about these games. We are sure once you play them, you will be asking for more of them and will pre-order their sequels if they will release any time soon.
