The Xbox One console has an excellent lineup of Mystery games that will captivate gamers who love solving crimes and unraveling complex stories. These engrossing games offer intricate plots, creative puzzles, and thrilling investigations that test players' deduction skills.
In 2023, the Xbox One continues to be a great platform for mystery titles, thanks to robust backward compatibility and new releases. From supernatural adventures to small-town murder mysteries, the selection covers a wide range of themes and settings.
If you're looking for an immersive single-player experience on your Xbox One, these mystery games should be on your radar. Here are 18 of the best Xbox One mystery games released in 2023.
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1. GHOST TRICK: Phantom Detective
GHOST TRICK: Phantom Detective is a remastered classic brought to modern consoles in 2023. This supernatural adventure puts players in the role of a ghost trying to solve their own murder before sunrise.
With the ability to manipulate time and possess objects, you'll unravel a twisting tale of assassination and fate. The ghostly detective will meet eccentric characters and solve reality-bending puzzles to uncover the conspiracy behind his death.
Key Features:
- Intriguing murder mystery with a paranormal twist
- Inventive object manipulation and time travel mechanics
- Stylish original visuals and haunting soundtrack
- Engaging story full of humor, heart, and surprises
What makes the game a good mystery game:
GHOST TRICK: Phantom Detective brings Capcom's cult classic to a new generation with gameplay that's still as inventive as ever. The bizarre powers and high stakes will captivate Xbox One owners looking for an offbeat take on the mystery genre.
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2. Beacon Pines
For a charming small-town mystery, look no further than Beacon Pines. This hand-drawn adventure puts you in an idyllic village hiding disturbing secrets. As inquisitive Luka, you'll meet quirky residents and search for clues to reveal the truth.
With a reactive narrative, your choices determine which of the multiple endings you'll experience. Will you find a way to save Beacon Pines or watch as darkness descends? Every decision results in new story possibilities in this eerie tale.
Key Features:
- Branching, choice-driven narrative with 7 endings
- Exploration of charming hand-drawn environments
- Wholesome characters with surprising hidden depths
- Innovative charms system that alters the story
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Beacon Pines brings warmth and emotional resonance to the mystery genre. The adorable art style belies a deep supernatural conspiracy for players to unravel.
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3. Strange Horticulture
For mystery fans seeking something a bit more low-key, Strange Horticulture offers a supernatural shopkeeping experience. As the new proprietor of an unusual plant shop, you'll serve a colorful cast of characters while collecting mysterious flora.
Each plant has unique properties you can harness to change customers' fates. Will you use your horticultural skills for good or ill? The fate of the strange town of Undermere lies in your hands. With a cat by your side, you'll water plants and follow clues to uncover this community's occult secrets.
Key Features:
- Manage a shop by collecting new plants and tools
- Influence customers' lives with special plants
- Discover a hidden world of magic and rituals
- Charming environments and eccentric characters
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Strange Horticulture brings all the satisfactions of running a business along with supernatural mystery. The low-stakes pace and magical theme make for cozy yet engaging gameplay.
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4. The Forgotten City
This award-winning narrative adventure began life as a mod for Skyrim before expanding into a standalone game. In The Forgotten City, you'll find yourself trapped in an underground Roman city where one sin can doom everyone.
Talking to the city's residents, you'll need to carefully navigate ethical dilemmas and learn to exploit the time loop to save lives. With every decision affecting the outcome, you'll have to unravel this mystical society's rules and secrets if you hope to escape.
Key Features:
- Philosophical narrative with moral choices
- Time loop lets you solve puzzles and avoid disaster
- Interact with fully voiced characters based on real history
- Multiple endings depending on your actions
What makes the game a good mystery game:
The Forgotten City brings a new level of maturity and gravitas to the Xbox One's library of mystery games. Ancient Rome never felt so alive yet so sinister, and the temporal puzzles will challenge players to think creatively.
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5. Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins
If you want a truly innovative mystery, try Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins. Billed as a "found phone" game, you'll be digging through video clips, texts, emails, and audio logs to uncover an eerie conspiracy.
Trapped in an abandoned house and stalked by deadly Weeping Angels, you'll need all your wits to survive. Taking inspiration from escape room puzzles, the game captures the thrilling tension of Doctor Who's best episodes.
Key Features:
- Immersive found phone interface
- Creepy sci-fi atmosphere and monsters
- Challenging puzzles and clue trails
- New story taking place in the Doctor Who universe
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Bringing this beloved BBC series into the world of gaming, The Lonely Assassins is a thriller that will keep you peering over your shoulder. The found footage format helps players become truly immersed in the mystery.
Get Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins
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6. Outer Wilds
For mystery on an interplanetary scale, look no further than Outer Wilds. In this open-world space exploration game, you'll pilot a rickety ship to vividly realized planets containing ruins, environments, and cultures.
Your goal is to solve the disappearance of an ancient alien race by gathering clues scattered across the solar system. But with the sun about to explode, time is quickly running out on your galactic adventure.
Key Features:
- Open-ended planet exploration and discovery
- Ingenious time loop mechanics
- Mysteries spanning the whole of a mini solar system
- Joy of figuring out puzzles at your own pace
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Outer Wilds redefines the scope of mystery games by making entire celestial bodies into crime scenes. Xbox One gamers will love charting their own course through this beautifully crafted cosmic puzzle box.
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7. Tangle Tower
For a lighter mystery adventure, check out Tangle Tower. This 'painted' world invites you to investigate a bizarre mansion where something sinister is afoot. Playing as inquisitive detective Grimoire, you'll question peculiar suspects, explore the mansion, and piece together clues.
With its vibrant art style, oddball characters, and tricky puzzles, Tangle Tower brings wit and charm to the Xbox One's mystery lineup. Can you untangle the secrets of this offbeat whodunit?
Key Features:
- Charming painted art style
- Hilarious voice acting and writing
- Logical deduction puzzles and clue-finding
- Investigate at your own pace
What makes the game a good mystery game:
With its humorous tone, colorful cast of suspects, and logically designed puzzles, Tangle Tower is a refreshingly light yet engaging mystery game for the Xbox One.
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8. Return Of The Obra Dinn
Step aboard the ghost ship Obra Dinn in this striking mystery adventure. As an insurance investigator, you'll re-live the crew's doomed voyage thanks to a magical pocket watch.
By piecing together these supernatural scenes, you can identify all 60 crew members and how they perished. With its 1-bit monochrome visuals and unsettling atmosphere, Return of the Obra Dinn brings eerie innovation to Xbox One mystery titles.
Key Features:
- Innovative 1-bit graphics and sound design
- Meticulous logic puzzles to ID crew members
- Eerie, slowly unfolding supernatural mystery
- Novel gameplay mechanics
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Return of the Obra Dinn stands out for its ominous atmosphere, cryptic storytelling, and inventive deductions required to unravel the fates of the crew. The supernatural twist makes this a uniquely haunting mystery.
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9. Firewatch
Explore the Wyoming wilderness and unravel conspiracies in this acclaimed first-person adventure. In Firewatch, you play a fire lookout who discovers strange occurrences in Shoshone National Forest.
With only a radio dispatcher to keep you company, you'll explore lush forests and abandoned campsites while searching for answers. Firewatch brings environmental storytelling and emotional resonance to the Xbox One's mystery genre.
Key Features:
- Expansive, detailed forest environments
- Gripping conspiracy plot full of twists
- Unique low-key pacing and minimalist sound
- Strong voice acting performances
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Firewatch utilizes its open world and environmental storytelling masterfully to craft a compelling mystery narrative that will keep Xbox One players guessing until the end.
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10. Batman: Arkham Asylum
Become the Dark Knight and bring justice to Gotham's most deranged villains in Batman: Arkham Asylum. When Joker takes over the infamous asylum, only Batman can stop his sinister schemes.
Using stealth and gadgets, you'll take down thugs, solve riddles, and stop a deadly prison riot. With Kevin Conroy voicing Batman, this game encapsulates the character and his rogues gallery perfectly for Xbox One owners.
Key Features:
- Tactical stealth combat and combos
- Iconic Batman atmosphere and characters
- Intense Joker boss battle
- Riddler challenges test your deduction
What makes the game a good mystery game:
With a deranged cast of villains including the Riddler, Batman: Arkham Asylum leverages the Dark Knight's impressive rogues gallery to create an exciting detective experience.
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11. L.A. Noire
Transport back to 1947 Los Angeles in this groundbreaking detective thriller. As war veteran Cole Phelps, you'll investigate grisly murders, riots, conspiracies and more.
Using revolutionary motion scan technology, L.A. Noire faithfully captures every facial expression as you interrogate suspects and search for clues. Whether you're patrolling the city or piecing together evidence, this stylish mystery immerses Xbox One players in the gritty underbelly of 1940s L.A.
Key Features:
- Innovative facial capture for realistic performances
- Engaging investigations across distinct cases
- Impressive recreation of 1940s L.A.
- Intense action driving and shooting sequences
What makes the game a good mystery game:
L.A. Noire revolutionizes mystery gaming with its detailed crime scene analysis gameplay and advanced motion scan technology that captures authentic facial performances.
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12. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments
The world's greatest detective comes to Xbox One in sumptuous fashion. In Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, you'll bring your deduction skills to six thrilling cases.
Examine bodies, search crime scenes, question suspects, and carefully analyze evidence to catch killers. Whether you're tracking serial killers or exploring London's seedy underbelly, this mystery adventure makes you feel like the real Sherlock Holmes.
Key Features:
- Authentic Sherlock Holmes atmosphere and characters
- Six distinct cases covering gruesome murders
- Interrogate suspects and gather clues
- Forensic analysis and riveting deductions
What makes the game a good mystery game:
It authentically brings Sherlock Holmes and his deductive prowess to life in video game form, challenging players to think like the legendary sleuth.
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13. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
In this eerie first-person mystery, you'll search the forests of Ethan Carter for clues behind the boy's disappearance. With its detailed environments and occult edge, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter brings precision storytelling to the genre.
Key Features:
- Photorealistic forest environments to explore
- Occult-tinged mystery unfolding at your pace
- Emotional story told without combat or action
- Meticulously crafted open world
What makes the game a good mystery game:
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter leverages its gorgeously rendered open world to pull players deeply into the creepy and tragic mystery at its core.
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14. The Wolf Among Us
Take on the role of Bigby Wolf, sheriff of Fabletown, in this gritty mystery based on the comics. Keep the peace amongst storybook legends while investigating a brutal murder in The Wolf Among Us. With intrigue around every corner, justice won't come easy.
Key Features:
- Dark, neon-soaked take on fairy tale characters
- Choice-driven narrative with multiple endings
- Engaging characters with depth
- Shocking action sequences
What makes the game a good mystery game:
The Wolf Among Us brings mystery and interpersonal drama together in a vivid fantasy realm bursting with interesting characters from folklore and fairy tales.
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15. The Walking Dead
Join survivor Lee Everett during the zombie apocalypse in this emotionally gripping adventure. While seeking safety, you'll encounter desperate survivors, make impossible choices, and unearth your own humanity in The Walking Dead.
Key Features:
- Choices impact the narrative and characters
- Emphasis on personal drama over combat
- Film-quality visuals and voice acting
- Haunting violin-driven score
What makes the game a good mystery game:
More an interactive human drama than a traditional mystery, The Walking Dead compels through its complex characters and gut-wrenching decisions.
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16. What Remains of Edith Finch
Uncover the tragic history of the eccentric Finch family in this highly imaginative narrative. By exploring the massive Finch house, you’ll experience the final moments of departed relatives via flashbacks in What Remains of Edith Finch.
Key Features:
- Highly detailed, ornate family home to explore
- Unique vignettes showing each relative’s last day
- Imaginative mini-games recreating deaths
- Somber atmosphere and music
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Each family member's final day plays out in different ways, creating variety while unraveling the haunting mystery at the heart of What Remains of Edith Finch.
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17. Life is Strange
Rewind time to undo mistakes in this story-driven adventure. When student Max Caulfield gains time manipulation powers, she sets out to find a missing classmate and uncover secrets in her town. With twists around every corner, Life is Strange grips until the end.
Key Features:
- Time rewinding mechanics impact the story
- Captivating visuals and indie soundtrack
- Player choices affect narrative and relationships
- Memorable, authentic-feeling characters
What makes the game a good mystery game:
With Max's ability to reshape events, Life is Strange empowers players to solve its central mystery through their own deduction and interactive choices.
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18. Pentiment
Immerse yourself in Medieval life while solving a murder in this beautifully illustrated narrative adventure. In Pentiment, you'll meet colorful locals, explore village secrets, and illuminate a sprawling mystery spanning 25 years.
Key Features:
- Hand-illustrated art resembling medieval manuscripts
- RPG elements like dialog skill checks
- Deep lore and historical worldbuilding
- Rewarding long-form mystery story
What makes the game a good mystery game:
Pentiment leverages its medieval setting and wealth of details to construct an intricately layered mystery narrative for history buffs and sleuths alike.
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Conclusion
The Xbox One has compelling mystery games that span supernatural thrillers, poignant small-town yarns, grand sci-fi adventures, and more. With intricate stories and clever game mechanics, these titles will test your reasoning skills while keeping you engrossed for hours.
In 2023, the versatile Xbox One console continues to deliver engrossing single-player mystery experiences. Whether you prefer character-driven drama like Beacon Pines or expansive space exploration like Outer Wilds, the platform has captivating titles to scratch your detective gaming itch.
So gather clues, question shady characters, and expose the secrets at the heart of these engrossing Xbox One titles. If you love mysteries, these games are essential additions to your collection. Just beware - the crime is never quite what it seems.
