All games, no price, no dates, no hardware reveals. That was the promise of the Xbox Series X Games Showcase, and that’s exactly what Microsoft delivered, as they focussed on their first party line up and second and third party exclusives (timed and otherwise).
It was a svelte hour-long presentation, and a lot more polished than their first attempt, so let’s dive in with all the news and trailers. Interestingly, there was a lot of stuff here for Xbox Series X and PC, and not for Xbox One. I guess we can expect to see those games in late 2021 and beyond.
As was expected the show opened with Halo Infinite, with a cinematic story trailer and a first gameplay reveal. That game is coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox One and PC.
State of Decay 3 announced for Xbox Series X and PC.
Forza Motorsport 8 announced, and will have ray tracing and 60fps on Xbox Series X, but it’s not coming to Xbox One and was described as being in early development.
Rare gave us another glimpse of their upcoming fantasy IP Everwild.
Dontnod’s Tell Me Why first episode will release on 28th August.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is being enhanced with 4K at 120fps and more dynamic audio for Xbox Series X.
The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon DLC was announced for release in September.
Obsidian’s miniaturised adventure Grounded will be out on 28th July.
And Obsidian announced their first Xbox exclusive RPG, Avowed. The game is set in a new fantasy world, coming to Xbox Series X and PC.
As Dusk Falls is an interactive drama from Interior Night.
Jack Black has sung a new song for Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2.
Destiny 2 and all its expansions are coming to Xbox Game Pass.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 is now an Xbox Series X and PC, with timed console exclusivity.
Tetris Effect: Connected is an Xbox One release of the game with an exclusive multiplayer mode.
The Gunk is a timed console exclusive from the makers of the SteamWorld series.
There was a new demonstration of the twin-realities of The Medium from Bloober Team.
Here’s Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, coming in 2021 Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC.
Remedy Entertainment’s single player campaign for CrossfireX was revealed.
And finally… the “one more thing” was Fable from Playground Games.
Phew! That’s quite a lot of stuff! What stood out from the stream for you?
Tuffcub
Hang on. How on earth are Bungie going to make any money if D2 and the expansion are part of game pass? Unless MS paid an absolute fortune to Bungie for it.
Starman
Microtransactions I’d guess. Also the xbox user base is probably only about 20% of the total players. And anyone that wants Destiny 2 has probably got it by now.
gazzagb
S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 was a nice surprise, and CrossfireX has me interested. Overall I thought it was a good showcase with lots of variety. I’m guessing they’ve held back one or two big announcements for the final reveal, which surely can’t be far away now…?
wonkey-willy
Nothing there really got my juices flowing,
WaxBull
Utter crap! The first scene in Halo Infinite with the armour being pieced together was great, but then it went south very quickly. Only Forza 8 and Fable grabbed my attention, both of which lacked any real gameplay and suggest they are years off. Disappointing, but at the same time it gives me plenty of time to save for a decent PC where I can play Forza and Fable and all the games on Steam I fancy.
Deviating from Nintendo and PlayStation exclusive strategies has made Xbox irrelevant to me, but I’ll always remember the good ol’ 360 days.
MrYd
So a lack of exclusives, some remasters (sorry, “enhanced” versions) and some DLC?
And as for Tetris Effect… The PS4 gets the update, but next summer. And due to “contractual reasons” (presumably “MS gave us a big sack of money”), the PS4 version has actually had features removed. They’ve removed the remote play feature. Even by their standards, that’s pretty shit.
Stefan L
Dunno about you, but I saw quite a few games that you can’t play on PlayStation 5 there.
MrYd
It’s mostly “Series X and PC” or “timed console exclusive”.
I guess it’s good they’re being open about things being timed exclusives now though. And not so great if they’re paying to have things removed from games that already released on competing platforms.
Stefan L
So… I think we agree that you can’t play them on PlayStation 5 and can only get them on Xbox or Windows 10, both of which are Microsoft platforms, right?
And it’s great that Microsoft are pretty clear and open about which games are timed exclusive. It’s a shame that Sony aren’t so clear about that, isn’t it?
The Tetris thing is pretty weird and sounds dodgy, though.
MrYd
Ah, we’re counting things as “Microsoft exclusives” now, rather than “XBox exclusives”? It’s one way to do it, I guess.
Clearly MS have realised they’re not going to come out on top with just the XBox, after 3 attempts already. They’ve got everything coming to Windows 10, along with the streaming thing, and the weird XBox naming which is almost as if they just want a single XBox brand rather than individual hardware. Fair enough, it might just work for them. And they might make lots of money with subscriptions. Or find people just use a PC and only pay the subscription and not all the money they’d make selling XBox games.
And are Sony really any worse at not mentioning timed exclusivity?
Good luck to MS, but so far they’ve not shown anything as impressive as it should be when launching a new console. To the point where they’re treating the Series X almost as if it’s just an upgrade, like the One X, and you can buy that if you really want, or a PC, or just stream everything. Certainly an interesting tactic, and I can’t wait to see how Sony react to it.
Stefan L
Yeah, we’re counting “console exclusives”, because it’s a tired narrative that Microsoft has “no exclusives.” They’re not on PlayStation, so you need to engage with a Microsoft system or service in order to play their games.
And yes, Sony are much worse at revealing which games are timed exclusives. None of the games in their showcase had any kind of indicator, and yet over half the games they showed were just that.
Starman
It’s funny how when Microsoft have an exclusive it’s “ms gave them a big sack of money” but when Sony do the same we hear nothing of the sort. Ps4 has had plenty of timed exclusives, but there’s never the same attitude to Sony about it.
MrYd
Sure, they both do it. It’s just the way MS go about it is much worse.
The blatant lying about it being exclusive? Rather than a timed exclusive, or just not mentioning it either way. (Whichever Tomb Raider it was a few years back?)
And now actually paying developers to remove features from PS4 versions and have a timed exclusive on an update? To a game that released on PS4 a couple of years ago?
cam_manutd
Better than I expected it to be but still a little dull especially compared to the PS5 one. Fable, Avowed, Stalker 2 and State of Decay 3 are solid. Halo was disappointing. Platform for the future can be easily translated to ‘this game will be a live service game and won’t be representative of our vision for a few years yet’.
MOVE
Thankfully there was nothing for me of the exlusives ones, except perhaps Medium. Still hoping that one goes multiplatform, just like Blair Witch did.