Popular Xbox games — May 9th, 2023

This week's Xbox Gameplay Chart of popular Xbox games sees the top spot change hands for the first time this year, along with a strong start for Bethesda's Redfall while Minecraft Legends tumbles towards the Nether...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II had the top spot on our weekly Xbox Gameplay Chart on lockdown since it launched in late October, but this week sees its reign finally ended by a familiar opponent that has been snapping at CoD's heels for months. Fortnite kicking off a timely Star Wars event last week gave the battle royale staple just the boost it needed to take the lead at last, so it'll be interesting to see how the two compare in the coming weeks — the gap in player counts has been slowly closing and is now extremely tight, so expect the next few furlongs to be decided by a nose.

Just below these two rivals, we see this week's first new entry, and it's Arkane's Redfall. A mixed but somewhat negative-skewed critical response — including our own Redfall review, which called it "a game confused" — hasn't stopped loads of players from jumping into the game to make up their own minds, with the vampire FPS appearing on over 13% of accounts in the chart's data pool in the last week. That lands it second place in the biggest Xbox launches of 2023 so far according to our week-one data for each game (only behind Atomic Heart), so all that remains to be seen now is whether Redfall can stick around for more than a week or two.

One game that hasn't managed to do that in the least is Minecraft Legends, which, after an extremely strong start, has absolutely dropped off in just a couple of weeks. Mojang's strategy spin-off debuted in 4th, tumbling to the tail end of the top 20 last week only to plummet again this week and only just make it onto the chart at all with a clutch 40th place grab. This sees the game just manage to knock Elden Ring out of the top 40 for the first time, and by the smallest of margins (we're dealing with a pool of over two million accounts here, and Legends only pipped Elden Ring by less than 100 total weekly players)... no doubt From's punishing RPG will return to the chart when its DLC hits, but will the same be true of Legends? We'll have to wait and see.

Game Pass Quests only serve up one win this week, sending Wo Long back into action and all the way back into the top 20, while its running partner Wasteland 2 narrowly misses out on the top 40. Hogwarts Legacy's belated Xbox One release also grants it a nice bump to jump back up just beneath Wo Long at 21. Meanwhile, Game Pass itself gives us our only other new entry this week, with fantasy voxel adventure Ravenlok coming in in 37th and apparently offering a full set of easy Game Pass achievements that can be grabbed in around four hours. With plenty of movement, we have six casualties this week — Elden Ring is first as mentioned but still clings on just outside the chart at 41, joined below by NHL 23, For Honor, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Resident Evil 4, and last week's Quests star, the excellent Pentiment.

There's not a huge amount of major stuff heading our way this week, or even for the rest of the month... it's almost like there's some other big game dropping soon on another system or something? In any case, we should still have some interesting clashes coming up in the next few charts, especially that one at the top which could honestly go either way. Will the title change hands again next week? Is this Minecraft Legends' last gasp? Where will Redfall end up next week? Tune in then to find out, and drop below to let us know your thoughts in the meantime!

Top 40 Xbox Gameplay Chart (w/e May 7th, 2023)

Position	Game	Publisher	Last week
1	Fortnite	Epic Games	2
2	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II	Activision	1
3	Redfall	Bethesda Softworks	-
4	Minecraft	Xbox Game Studios	3
5	Grand Theft Auto V	Rockstar Games	4
6	FIFA 23	Electronic Arts	5
7	Rocket League	Psyonix	6
8	Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege	Ubisoft	7
9	Destiny 2	Bungie	9
10	ROBLOX	Roblox	8
11	Overwatch 2	Blizzard Entertainment	10
12	Forza Horizon 5	Xbox Game Studios	12
13	Apex Legends	Electronic Arts	11
14	Star Wars Jedi: Survivor	Electronic Arts	14
15	Dead Island 2	PLAION	13
16	Halo Infinite	Xbox Game Studios	17
17	NBA 2K23	2K Sports	15
18	MLB The Show 23	MLB	16
19	Madden NFL 23	Electronic Arts	19
20	Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty	KOEI TECMO	RE
21	Hogwarts Legacy	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment	28
22	Battlefield 2042	Electronic Arts	20
23	Star Wars Episode I Racer	Aspyr Media	-
24	LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment	RE
25	Red Dead Redemption 2	Rockstar Games	22
26	EA SPORTS UFC 4	Electronic Arts	21
27	FIFA 22	Electronic Arts	27
28	Fall Guys	Epic Games	29
29	Star Wars Battlefront II	Electronic Arts	40
30	Sea of Thieves	Xbox Game Studios	23
31	Halo: The Master Chief Collection	Xbox Game Studios	26
32	Grounded	Xbox Game Studios	24
33	Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order	Electronic Arts	34
34	Call of Duty: Black Ops III	Activision	30
35	Dead by Daylight	505 Games	31
36	PUBG: Battlegrounds	KRAFTON	33
37	Ravenlok	Cococucumber	-
38	Warframe	Digital Extremes	35
39	Gang Beasts	Double Fine	RE
40	Minecraft Legends	Xbox Game Studios	18

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.

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.