Top Five turn-based games on Xbox One
We all need to slow down a little. Relax. Take time out of our hectic schedules to ponder our decisions, rather than plunging headlong without pause for thought.
Turn based games allow us to sit back and take a breath, consider all the options before making a decision. There might be a timer to keep things from stalling completely, but even so they still offer a different gaming experience.
Here are five of the best.
Child of Light | Ubisoft Montreal
An early title for Xbox One, Ubisoft Montreal’s Child of Light launched in April 2014. This surprising gentle, dream like fairy-tale takes you on an adventure as Aurora, exploring the weird and wonderful friendships she makes, and the weirder foes she faces. While the exploration is carried out in real time, battles are fought in turn-based combat. Aesthetically the game shines, beautiful hand-drawn visuals and charming character designs draw you in to a game of intelligent simplicity.
Told entirely in poem form (and a good deal more poetic than our own efforts) Child of Light is an absorbing, captivating adventure.
We don’t have enough good things to say about this game.
Child of Light is available on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.
The Living Dungeon | RadiationBurn
Board games and video games make excellent bedfellows. No, really they do. All the fun of a board game without that annoying setting up, clearing away and searching for dice down the back of the sofa. Fancy visuals and atmospheric music only add to the appeal. Add in an AI opponent for the lonely or friendless, and we’re sold.
The Living Dungeon is a great example of the benefits the video game medium brings to board games. Clever and inventive, this strategic adventure and exploration game places you on a board made up of tiles that are always changing – a living dungeon if you will. Switch to the more board-game-like Tavern mode and you’re in for a treat.
One of the very best examples of the genre.
The Living Dungeon is available on Steam and Xbox.
Worms Battlegrounds | Team 17
Video games and Worms go way back – back to 1995, in fact. Worms Battlegrounds is the same game. Bigger. Brighter. Louder. More exploding sheep. That can’t be a bad thing, right?
With beautiful cartoon-like 3D visuals but the same compelling 2D gameplay, Worms plays just as brilliantly as it always has. Add in online multiplayer, support for Clans, and a beefed up single player that adds in a host of contraptions and machinery to add extra challenge.
The best entry in this long-running series.
Worms Battlegrounds is available on Xbox.
The Banner Saga | Stoic
Vikings and sagas go together like… Vikings and pillaging. The Banner Saga is an epic roleplaying adventure. At once both bleak and beautiful, The Banner Saga has some of the strongest writing we’ve seen in games over the last couple of years.
It’s punishing, too. The strategic combat is anguishing in its brutality and every decision you make has far reaching consequences. This is a challenging tactical RPG that will reduce your best laid plans to little more than a pile of dead Vikings and your own bitter tears.
A classic.
The Banner Saga is available on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.
Finally, we’d have loved to include XCOM here – the best turn-based games of all time. Sadly, Enemy Within and Enemy Unknown aren’t yet part of the Backwards Compatibility programme, and it doesn’t look like XCOM 2 is getting a console release, so…
Blackguards | Daedalic Entertainment
Okay, so this one’s not out yet, but it is certainly popular amongst the jaded PC crowd and is due to land on consoles in the summer.
Eschewing the exploration of a typical RPG, Blackguards is first and foremost about the combat. The low-fantasy setting (dark, gritty, distinct lack of golden shining armour and heroes). Framed for murder, you burst from prison with a few new criminal friends in tow, and spend your time killing foes to prove your innocence. Video game logic, huh?
We’re excited to see how well this popular PC game translates to consoles. We’ll find out later this year.
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There we have it – our five (sort of) favourite turn based games on Xbox One. What are your top picks? Why not let us know in the comments?
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