Behold the most powerful console ever made

The Xbox One X is the most powerful console ever made. While that might just seem like a brilliant marketing tagline, it really does mean that this is an excellent way to play your console games.

4K HDR TVs are proving it’s worthwhile upgrading to the new telly tech, and the Xbox One X is the perfect way to deliver the optimum gaming experience.

The console plays all the same games as its less powerful predecessors, but games are receiving One X updates that imbue them with updated visuals and other benefits you won’t get anywhere else. Here are the best so far.

Assassin’s Creed Origins

Assassin’s Creed Origins gets a remarkable One X update complete with HDR support, 4K visuals and some fantastic temporal anti- aliasing (used to achieve a fantastic smoothness) that means it looks by far the best on Microsoft’s hardware. Across our 50 hours with the game we reckon we spent more time lusting over the ancient Egyptian architecture in the game’s in-built photo mode than we did actually stabbing our targets in stealthy fashion. No matter, it’s one of the best virtual tourist destinations to date.

Forza Motorsport 7

Weirdly, Forza Motorsport 7 came out before the Xbox One X, despite being the new console’s flagship exclusive. With the One X update finally installed, though, the racing simulator goes from being a very pretty game to a ludicrously beautiful one. Any jaggy edges are ironed out immediately and there’s a smoothness to its 60fps gameplay that you can’t get on many other console games. The HDR effects pop and makes its long list of tracks a globetrotting delight. There’s little else like it.

Hitman: The Full Experience

Hitman gets one of the best One X updates out there. Not only do you get options to decide between 4K visuals at 30fps or 1440p at 60fps, the developer of this stealth classic, IO Interactive, has also been hard at work to improve the general look of the game. Compared to last year’s vanilla release, you’ll notice improved texture work and light- ing models to bring the game’s six rich, sprawling levels to life. With HDR, too, it makes for one of the best looking and most detailed games on the platform.

Halo 5: Guardians

Despite being Microsoft’s go-to exclusive shooter for Xbox, Halo 5 wasn’t the best looking game when it came out a couple of years ago. Concessions had clearly been made to get the game running as flawlessly as it did. On Xbox One X, however, those concessions have disappeared and the result feels like the definitive way to play Halo 5. It’s brighter, more vibrant and with a level of clarity that it never had on base Xbox hardware—and it still runs incredibly smoothly.

Gears of War 4

Gears of War is another Microsoft first party exclusive and as such it gets the special One X treatment, with all the bells and whistles you would expect from a AAA game on the latest hardware. The result is one of the best examples of HDR to date— Gears might often be violent and bloody, gnashing away with its underslung chainsaws, but Gears 4 also finds a serenity in its more peaceful environments. They’ve never looked more vibrant thanks to the increased colour gamut, and the pristine 4K presentation looks immense.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider was an envelope pusher for visuals on the PC—on Xbox One it looks similarly amazing. With a bunch of different graphical options to tweak settings to your preferences, you get a choice between full 4K presentation, improved graphical effects, and a lower resolution mode that runs in a higher framerate. THE INDEPENDENT