10 Best Anomaly Hunting Games on Xbox 2026

Do you have the keenest eye to spot what’s out of place in a liminal space or environment with repeating patterns? That’s essentially the skill anomaly hunting games seek to challenge, crafting brain-teasing puzzles that test your memory and eye for detail. 

Besides puzzle games, you’ll find plenty of horror games that incorporate anomaly hunting in their gameplay. You might need to spot strange creatures or events and avoid or survive them. Recently, though, there has been a new crop of anomaly-hunting games in the open-world exploration and shooting genres. 

In today’s listicle, we go over the best anomaly hunting games on Xbox you won’t want to miss out on. 

10. The Exit 8

The Exit 8 is one of the most popular anomaly hunting games on Xbox. It uses liminal spaces to design an endless underground passageway that you need to find your way out of. All it’ll take is extreme keenness to your surroundings, identifying anything that might be out of place.

When you find anomalies, you must turn back and go the other way. However, if everything seems normal, you can keep walking until you find Exit 8. Evidently, missing any anomaly could easily trap you in an endless loop that will feel satisfying to finally crack.

9. Anomaly Agent

When strange anomalies begin to threaten the survival of the world, you’re called upon, as Agent 70, to hunt down all the anomalies and save the world. The art style here is unique, with a cyberpunk feel. Meanwhile, gameplay takes place via action-platforming, as you master your melee, guns, and unique anomaly-hunting weapons. 

Anomaly Agent may not be your usual anomaly hunting go-to. But it sure does switch up the pace with its jumping and climbing sequences. You also engage in intense action, staggering enemies, and blasting them with special moves that make use of the environment around you.

8. The Devil is in the Details

Meanwhile, The Devil is in the Details merges escape rooms with anomaly hunting. You’re taken through a hellish mansion to survive the nightmarish obstacles the devil throws at you and find an escape. Your playthrough will evolve over four distinct campaigns, each one featuring unique trials to beat.

You enjoy a pretty engaging playthrough full of surprises. While exploring and investigating the mansion, you run into deadly traps and enemies hiding in the shadows. The devil’s demons challenge you with pranks like sliding floors, too. Still, you have access to talismans to place on cursed objects and can acquire limited resources that help you through the terrifying ordeal.

7. Anomaly Hunter – Observation Duty

Playing as a security guard, all you have are security cameras to maintain the safety of an unknown building. You’re tasked with paying attention to the tapes, identifying any anomalies. But this isn’t any ordinary job, with eerie movements and sounds clouding the corridors. 

What’s more? Anomaly Hunter – Observation features scary creatures like zombies and ghosts. Without successfully reporting anomalies, the horrors of your job will come after you. 

6. Lurking Ghosts: On Observation Duty

Lurking Ghosts: On Observation Duty is pretty similar to Anomaly Hunter – Observation Duty, each earning a spot among the best anomaly hunting games on Xbox. You still monitor surveillance footage, testing your memory and eye for detail. All that’s asked of you is to survive the night shift, but only by reporting all the supernatural anomalies you see so they get “fixed.”

5. Captured

Captured has been a popular sensation among the best anomaly hunting games. And on October 7, 2025, it’ll finally be coming to Xbox Series X/S. It takes place in your home, turned into a living nightmare, with endless hallways harboring sinister creatures. 

Armed with nothing but your camera, you’ll slowly navigate through the rooms, looking for an exit. Your camera captures the anomalies you see while running away from the terrifying entities chasing you. In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to capture the wrong anomaly, which will wipe out your camera’s memory and force you to start again. 

4. The Cabin Factory

Another popular go-to among the best anomaly hunting games on Xbox is The Cabin Factory. Your job is to investigate several haunted cabins, and whenever you spot an anomaly, to turn back immediately.

3. Mato Anomalies

Taking a breather from puzzle-horror games, how about you try out Mato Anomalies? It’s a turn-based RPG about exploring a futuristic neo-fantasy city, hunting for strange anomalies. The anomalies will open up a rift into a demonic world where you’re forced to battle against vicious enemies. 

Besides combat, you’ll also talk to NPCs, gathering clues on the city’s dark secrets. You’ll visit shops and complete missions that take you all around a dangerous but inviting city.

2. I’m on Observation Duty 6

I’m on Observation Duty is the OG of analyzing CCTV cameras for anomalies. In the sixth entry, you pretty much follow the same concept, working as an employee of a mysterious organization and tasked with assessing camera footage for anything out of place. 

You might need to recall previous footage, identifying patterns that might reveal anomalies. And these are wide-ranging, from furniture that might have been moved to supernatural events and aliens.

1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Who says you can’t blow heads off while hunting down anomalies? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl offers the best of both worlds, incorporating intense action, engaging exploration, and anomaly hunting. It’s a first-person shooter that immerses you in a post-apocalyptic world, where deadly enemies and anomalies await. 

The anomalies are usually strange events that violate the laws of physics. You might stumble upon the Bulba, sucking you in to your death, or the Mist that impedes your vision. Certain anomalies cause you to hallucinate, among other effects, between funny and disturbing. 

Using detectors, you can avoid anomalies or throw bolts into them to disable them, among other ways to survive the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.