Popular Xbox games — April 24th, 2023

This week's Xbox Gameplay chart of popular Xbox games sees Minecraft Legends off to a solid start, with the blocky strategy spin-off joining the original Minecraft in the top five for a Mojang double bill.

The top five of our weekly Xbox Gameplay Chart is famously hard to crack, but Minecraft Legends has managed to do just that, debuting in fourth place after launching last week. It's not too surprising to see Legends performing well — Minecraft is one of the biggest brands in modern gaming, after all, plus Sean had plenty of good things to say about the strategy title in his Minecraft Legends review. Comparing the player counts to those over on TrueTrophies paints a pretty clear picture of the power of Game Pass as a driving factor here, with Legends seemingly not even able to break into our sister site's PlayStation Gameplay Chart at all this week. The only other new entry this time around is Dead Island 2, which grabs itself a respectable top 20 spot at 17th, especially since we only have the first few days of data since the zombie-slashing adventure's long-awaited release on Friday.

With Minecraft Legends coming in hot near the top, there's naturally a fair bit of sliding going on just below to make room, with eight games in and just outside the top ten taking a drop of a place or two — aside from that typically unmovable top three, only FIFA 23 and Overwatch 2 are able to hold their ground in the top flight this week. We also see Grounded make its return to the chart this week, thanks to an Xbox Game Pass Quest for Obsidian's shrunken survival sandbox, with its Quests partner this week For Honor charging up 13 places to almost join Grounded in the top 20.

Grounded is actually this week's only re-entry, so between that and the two new releases, that means just three games drop out of the top 40 this week. Predictably, two of these are Quests titles from the previous week, so Descenders crashes to the tail end of the top 100 while Monster Hunter Rise also carts hard, although the release of its massive Sunbreak expansion this week may well make its break from chart duty a short one. This week's other disappearance is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, sliding just outside of chart range this week.

It's a busy week in terms of new Xbox releases, with a whopping 34 games coming to Xbox this week, including several games coming to Game Pass. Will Star Wars Jedi: Survivor manage to force its way into the top five on next week's chart? Where will The Last Case of Benedict Fox slither in after the intriguing Eldritch Metroidvania game joins Game Pass? Could anticipated indies like Afterimage and Bramble: The Mountain King have some chart surprises up their sleeves? Let us know what you think down in the comments, and have a great week, folks!

Top 40 Xbox Gameplay Chart (w/e April 23rd, 2023)

Position	Game	Publisher	Last week
1	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II	Activision	1
2	Fortnite	Epic Games	2
3	Minecraft	Xbox Game Studios	3
4	Minecraft Legends	Xbox Game Studios	-
5	Grand Theft Auto V	Rockstar Games	4
6	FIFA 23	Electronic Arts	6
7	Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege	Ubisoft	5
8	Rocket League	Psyonix	7
9	Destiny 2	Bungie	8
10	Overwatch 2	Blizzard Entertainment	10
11	ROBLOX	Roblox	9
12	Forza Horizon 5	Xbox Game Studios	11
13	Apex Legends	Electronic Arts	12
14	MLB The Show 23	MLB	15
15	Halo Infinite	Xbox Game Studios	14
16	NBA 2K23	2K Sports	16
17	Dead Island 2	PLAION	-
18	Grounded	Xbox Game Studios	RE
19	Ghostwire: Tokyo	Bethesda Softworks	13
20	Madden NFL 23	Electronic Arts	17
21	Battlefield 2042	Electronic Arts	18
22	For Honor	Ubisoft	35
23	Red Dead Redemption 2	Rockstar Games	23
24	Hogwarts Legacy	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment	19
25	Sea of Thieves	Xbox Game Studios	22
26	EA SPORTS UFC 4	Electronic Arts	24
27	Halo: The Master Chief Collection	Xbox Game Studios	28
28	FIFA 22	Electronic Arts	25
29	Call of Duty: Black Ops III	Activision	27
30	Fall Guys	Epic Games	26
31	Resident Evil 4	Capcom Entertainment	20
32	Dead by Daylight	505 Games	29
33	PUBG: Battlegrounds	KRAFTON	30
34	Elden Ring	Bandai Namco Entertainment	31
35	NHL 23	Electronic Arts	40
36	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War	Activision	32
37	SMITE	Hi-Rez Studios	38
38	Star Wars Battlefront II	Electronic Arts	36
39	ARK: Survival Evolved	Reverb Publishing	34
40	The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition	Bethesda Softworks	37

Chart compiled using gameplay data from over 2.4 million active Xbox accounts. Chart information is copyright GameInsights. For details on how the chart is calculated, click here.

Chart

Written by Luke Albigés

Luke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.