Microsoft just held their double feature Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct, and I’m happy to say that the team easily knocked it out of the park. If your confidence in the future of Xbox was shaky prior to today, now it’s almost certainly stronger than ever before.
Ever since Microsoft went on their big acquisition spree near the end of the Xbox One generation, the constant narrative surrounding Xbox’s first-party lineup has been “just wait until next year.” The promise of greatness from their newly acquired studios was always just around the corner, but even with solid releases like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 in 2021, things were still shaky. Delays to big titles like Starfield and Redfall, and the constant absence of other heavy hitters such as Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II (first announced in 2019), Fable (first announced in 2020), Avowed (also announced in 2020), and Perfect Dark (ALSO announced in 2020) started causing faith in the brand to waver. The stellar Hi-Fi Rush picked things back up early this year, but that all came crumbling down after the shockingly disappointing release of Redfall.
It’s unfair, but that put all the pressure on Starfield and today’s showcase to deliver, proving to the gaming community that Xbox has quality games coming to the platform internally and from third-party partners. That makes it all the better that the showcase was all killer and no filler, resulting in a certified home run for Xbox.
Playground Games kicked off the show with an in-engine trailer for Fable that showcased the humor that fans love from the original series and the stunning visuals that the Forza Horizon developer is known for. Compulsion Games stepped up to the plate next to reveal their new project South of Midnight, and it left a strong impression on me thanks to its unique art style that’s reminiscent of stop-motion movies, as well as its interesting premise of a black woman in the South that’s hunting monsters. Obsidian Entertainment finally gave us a look at gameplay for their new RPG Avowed, and while its aesthetic gives off a different tone from the one that the announcement trailer gave us years ago, it certainly looks like it’ll be a fun time when it comes out next year.
Looking at the rest of Xbox’s first-party announcements, inXile revealed their new IP Clockwork Revolution, Hellblade II returned with a moody in-game trailer that showed off just how incredible its visuals and storytelling are, and Forza Motorsport got a new trailer and an October 10, 2023 release date. There’s also the new updates for games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, Sea of Thieves, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Fallout 76. Xbox Game Studios is also helping put out Towerborne, a new game from Stoic, the creators of The Banner Saga, and it looks like it’ll be a blast! Microsoft also announced a sleek black Xbox Series S that’ll have 1TB of storage and cost $349 ($150 less than the Xbox Series X), and it’s releasing on September 1.
Of course, the big centerpiece of the entire event was Starfield (it got its own direct after all), and it didn’t disappoint in the slightest. This was the classic Bethesda Game Studios deep dive which gave us our best look yet at the studio’s next RPG. We got a 45-minute in-depth look at the story, planets, systems, character creator, combat, ship-building, and more, and to be frank, it’s unbelievable that this is an actual video game that’s coming out in three months. I’m a sucker for a Bethesda RPG, but the scale of Starfield is utterly mind-blowing and has me afraid of just how much time I’m going to lose to it when it comes out in September. On top of potentially being the best Xbox game ever made, I genuinely believe it could end up being the best game I’ve ever played. If anything, the Starfield collector’s edition is definitely one of the best I’ve ever seen!
Outside of their first-party studios, Xbox had plenty of support from third-party teams in their showcase. Ubisoft revealed Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world Star Wars game that’s coming from Massive Entertainment, and although it was just a CG-trailer, it has me more excited than I expected to be. CD Projekt Red and Keanu Reeves brought a new trailer for the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty, showing off more of Idris Elba’s role in the game and revealing that it’s releasing VERY soon on September 26, 2023. Flying Lotus revealed their new game 33 Immortals which looks to blend the roguelike genre with large-scale co-op gameplay. Other smaller titles like Dungeons of Hinterberg and Jusant also made a strong impression with their unique art style and interesting gameplay.
Microsoft also continued to show their commitment to improving Japanese support on Xbox. Capcom brought Knitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, a new IP that’s caught my eye thanks to its intriguing premise. Sega did the bulk of the Japanese heavy lifting though with four games. First off, we got a fun trailer for Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. We also got the official announcement of Persona 3 Reload, a remake of Persona 3, and Persona 5 Tactica, a tactics inspired Persona 5 spin-off. Sega also took this opportunity to reveal Metaphor: Re Fantazio, a new fantasy RPG from the team behind Persona, and it looks absolutely wild.
Although this showcase was largely a win across the board, I do have one main issue with it. I feel like Xbox’s first-party games showed up and showed out, but I did need more from some of them. Yes it’s great to see that Fable still has its humor intact, but we’ve known about it for three years now and still haven’t seen any actual gameplay, nor do we have any sort of release window. South of Midnight has been in development for quite a while now, but the best we could get was an in-engine trailer and no gameplay or idea when we’ll be playing it? Clockwork Revolution was a bit cheeky in its trailer, saying that the game is coming “in due time,” but that still leaves a bit of mystery in the air. I imagine that each of these games will be coming by next year at the earliest (I predicted as such for Fable), but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth that we still don’t have much to go off of after all this time.
All that said, after seeing all these announcements from the showcase (and a few others), it’s hard to not feel positively about the future of Xbox. It’s been a long road getting here, but for the first time in a long time, it actually feels like next year will be a big year for the platform. Hi-Fi Rush and Starfield are setting the stage this year for an absolutely stellar 2024 and beyond. Of course anything can happen and the games could turn out to be duds like Redfall, but I have faith in Microsoft and the many teams at Xbox to bring the heat.
TheComfySpot 