Renting games didn’t die off with Blockbuster. Redbox has basically cornered the retail market for game rentals just as it has for movie rentals. Those shiny red kiosks you’ll find at pretty much every grocery store include a selection of some of the best recent videogames, along with a small handful of classic titles. If you want to try a new PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Switch game before you buy it, you might be able to find a copy through Redbox. Here are the best games currently available, based on the information found on Redbox’s website. Not every location offers Switch games, but you should be able to find the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One titles at almost every Redbox kiosk.
15. Metro Exodus
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Metro Exodus gave me the same feeling that I had playing the first-person games of the early ‘00s. It is messy, full of stock situations, and doesn’t quite work in all instances, but it is also experimental and willing to be a little unpolished if it creates a situation or a series of moments that are memorable and compelling. It is a great game that had to smear itself in a layer of whatever-nothing to convince you that it belonged in a certain genre. But like the octopus pretending to be a rock, Metro Exodus is a brilliant creature in the guise of a worse one. With some time, energy, and emotional investment it springs to life.—Cameron Kunzelman
14. Kingdom Hearts III
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
When comparisons between Kingdom Hearts and other franchises come up as a way of giving some cover to the keyblade game, I bristle. The power of Kingdom Hearts and all of its weirdness is contained in its implosive capability, its ability to be totally separated from all narrative responsibility. And as far as I can tell, that’s the greatest power in videogames.—Cameron Kunzelman
13. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Every encounter in Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII’s battle royale mode Blackout feels like you’re playing a micro version of a previous Call of Duty map with more players than you’re supposed to be. Storming a house becomes a fast, difficult encounter with strategic slides and lots of blind firing around corners. Then another team charges in behind you, and you become the person defending the house, and the whole thing is over in thirty seconds. This just isn’t how other battle royale games work, and frankly, it’s just the right level of strategy and commitment for me. This might be the optimal way to think about battle royale games; they are not a big war, but lots of tiny battles, and creating the conditions of those battles are what designers can really excel at.—Cameron Kunzelman
12. God of War
Platform: PlayStation 4
More than most action games, combat in God of War has the pacing of a rhythm game. You have to tap various buttons in the right sequence to strike and block at the right times, unleashing your extra-powerful attacks when needed. When you’re surrounded by enemies and dancing over the various attack buttons, calling in arrows from Atreus while blocking at the exact right moment to stun your enemy, you might find yourself entering a kind of trance where you’re locked so tightly into the rhythms of that combat that everything else momentarily fades away. From the pulse of that violence, to the feeling of that axe chopping through a monster as it flies back to you after a perfectly aimed strike, to the sweeping range of the weapon that’s unlocked later, the combat in God of War is about as satisfying as action games get.—Garrett Martin
11. MLB The Show 19
Platform: PlayStation 4
Sony’s best-in-class baseball game is an annual highlight. That means it’s also an ideal rental some years—who wants to pay $60 for the newest version of the same game every single year? If this is an off-year for you—if you sprung for The Show in 2018 and aren’t in a rush to upgrade just yet—grabbing a copy of 19 through a place like Redbox makes a lot of sense. And as usual, 19 features just enough upgrades and new wrinkles to make it worth playing, even if you’re keeping your franchise mode alive in one of the previous games. If you want to see what it has to offer, renting is your best bet.—Garrett Martin
10. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Platform: Switch
What originally felt like an ungainly mash-up between two properties that share almost no common ground unexpectedly turned into one of the biggest gaming surprises of the year. The Mario imagery and Rabbid humor is almost beside the point: this game works so well because it’s a smartly built and balanced tactical RPG that innovates on genre convention through its liberal approach to movement. If you like Final Fantasy Tactics and XCOM but wish you could move farther and faster across their grids, with multiple different ways to accomplish that, you should check out Mario + Rabbids. It’s a colorful strategy game that looks and feels like nothing else out there.—Garrett Martin
9. Dragon Ball FighterZ
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch
Dragon Ball FighterZ is both the fighting game and Dragon Ball spin-off I never realized I always wanted. The production values are better, and the narrative tension is vastly improved. Given how Dragon Ball FighterZ amps up the drama on existing Dragon Ball storylines, increases engagement by allowing the player to take dialogue sequences at their own pace, and puts a polished, beautiful spin on the old cartoon, this isn’t just my favorite Dragon Ball game. It’s my favorite Dragon Ball anything.—Holly Green
8. Devil May Cry 5
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Devil May Cry 5 never wants the player to feel any less than like they’re the coolest person on earth. While the game isn’t overly easy, health and upgrades are plentiful, every character has multiple options to handle any situation thrown at them, and the checkpointing system is gracious. Before every boss fight you are given a chance to upgrade and heal back up. In boss fights, if you go down you can use basic red orbs or special gold orbs to get right back into the fight. And this game is constantly tripping over itself to give you all the orbs you’ll ever need. Devil May Cry wants you to be the ultimate badass, and it’s going to give you every opportunity and tool it can.—Dia Lacina
7. Mortal Kombat 11
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
The latest tournament continues the convoluted story of the current Kombat series, taking it into even pulpier and more ridiculous sci-fi territory by making time travel a core component. Yes, older versions of fighters will meet their younger selves, and adults will wind up fighting alongside their parents before they ever had them. It’s goofy and absurd in the way that Kombat almost always is, and the almost seamless way the game transitions from cut-scenes to fights is still impressive. The best thing about Mortal Kombat 11, though, is the tutorial—it makes even the most complex fighting game techniques easy to understand and perform.—Garrett Martin
6. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
There is too much of a good thing. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey proves that. As a game it has a strong core of enjoyable action built upon a reliable and slightly upgraded foundation. As a story it’s an intriguing personal journey with good ideas but lackluster storytelling set against the backdrop of war between Sparta and Athens, with a strong, charismatic pair of leads making up for a lot of dull dialogue and meandering conversations. As an Assassin’s Creed it turns Origins from an outlier into the start of the new status quo, sacrificing a bit of its identity in order to bring it more in line with Ubisoft’s other open world games. It still captures much of what makes these games special, though, from the historical setting, to the dynamic action, to one of the few stealth combat systems that isn’t too slow or frustrating to enjoy. Embark on this journey with confidence, but be prepared to lose a lot of your free time along the way.—Garrett Martin
5. Fallout 4
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
It’s amazing that something with Fallout 4’s scope and magnitude remains as bewitching as this game does. Bethesda’s formula is overly familiar by this point, but from a story perspective these games exploit the freedom afforded by the medium more than almost any other notable examples. Fallout 4 is built on mystery and discovery. We can charge through the main storyline as quickly as we’d like, but the true power of this game comes from exploring at our own pace, uncovering its secrets in no certain order and at no set time.—Garrett Martin
4. Minecraft
Platform: Xbox One
Minecraft isn’t quite the phenomenon it once was, but it’s impossible to overstate its significance. It’s also still endlessly fun, all these years later. Exploring, collecting and building remains an always enticing loop, making it almost as hard to quit a game of Minecraft as it is to walk away from Civilization. Minecraft lets you stroll wild and free through the untamed woods, or devise your own list of goals and pursue them hard. Or you can even just do both, depending on your mood. It may not be the best game to rent—Minecraft means more the more you play it—but if you’re wondering what the fuss was all about, here’s a good way to find out.—Garrett Martin
3. Spider-Man
Platform: PlayStation 4
Spider-Man might return to too many wells too many times—it might be too stuffed full of fights and collectibles and typical open-world business—but its foundations are so strong that it never threatens to collapse on itself. This game understands why Spider-Man has been perhaps the most popular superhero of the last half-century, and does about as good of a job as the comics or movies at capturing the character’s essence. It blends more than fifty years of Spider history together, molds it around a thrilling recreation of Spider-Man’s trademark motion and fighting styles, and puts you in control of the whole thing. All together that makes this one of the most mechanically, narratively, and nostalgically satisfying big budget games of the year, and the best Spider-Man game yet.—Garrett Martin
2. Splatoon 2
Platform: Switch
Some have dinged this one a bit (including our own review) for sticking too closely to the formula established by the Wii U original. It’s true that, at first, it can feel more like a remake than a sequel. In time though its unique attributes become more apparent, from the variety of weapons, to the new maps, to the various multiplayer modes that supplement the standard Turf War. Splatoon 2 might not break a lot of ground but it’s one of the most purely fun games to come out for any system this year.
1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Platform: Switch
Nintendo’s latest violent ode to nostalgia might have more pure content than any other game we’ve seen this year. It’s got this many characters, and that many stages, and all those other characters who pop up as trophies and spirits (whatever those are). Music? This baby’s got every song you’ve ever heard in a videogame squeezed up inside of it. If you get stressed out when faced with a decision, a fully unlocked Smash Bros. Ultimate character selection screen will probably turn your hair white. Of course a game isn’t good because there’s a lot of it—it’s good because it’s, you know, good. And as a casual Smash player since the very first game came out, I have definitely enjoyed my time inflicting brutal punishment upon some of the most lovable videogame characters ever devised. Ultimate is about as replayable as videogames get. The only drawbacks are an online mode that’s so riddled with lag that it’s basically useless; the fact that, by its very nature, there’s not much in the way of narrative or emotional depth (I won’t hold that against the game itself, but for an all-encompassing list like this, that’s a comparison point); and the fact that, as typically seen with the series and its reliance on a degree of chaos, it’s not quite as mechanically precise as Nintendo’s best games. I might be playing it until the Switch is discontinued, but that doesn’t make it the best Switch game of 2018.—Garrett Martin