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Right now it's over to Leon on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct live blog, and here we'll wrap up everything we saw in the Xbox Games Showcase.
Gears of War E-Day. Looks like a prequel featuring Marcus Fenix and Augustus Cole.
No date on that, but clearly focused on Emergence Day, which is not something we've seen in the series to date beyond callbacks.
Saved one more thing for the end.
New Gears of War.
HARDWARE ALERT
All-new digital Xbox Series X and S.Also said it's "hard at work on the next generation"
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl new trailer, lots of gameplay showed off, anomalies.
September 5 reconfirmed.
Assassin's Creed: Shadows with a new trailer now - ahead of tomorrow's Ubisoft Forward which is interesting.
Nice look at the two characters together.
Reminder of that November 15 release date.
Rebellion's new game looks kinda bananas in a good way. Mechs, glowing zombies, British pomp. Phone box in the mountains.
Atomfall coming 2025.
Lengthy trailer here showing off combat, characters, enemies and locations.
Coming 2024 still - no release date.
Ah here comes Avowed at last!
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers coming 2025. Looks interesting!
Mechabreak coming 2025. Beta coming August.
2024 window still. No Indy release date.
The faces are great. Very Harrison Ford ticks on our Indy here.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle up now.
Brand new story trailer. Mention of finding the stones.
Himalayas segment in the freezing snow. Feels very Uncharted.
Life is Strange 3!!!
Murder Mystery story, can shift into parallel timelines where the victim (her friend) is still alive. Can she save Sapphi?
New Max Caulfield adventure, coming October 29, 2024.
Elder Scrolls Online - for a limited time you can play all the DLC for free.
Reminder that Gold Road is coming June 18.
November 19, 2024 release date for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 now, teasing more of its careers.
Commercial Flight Pilot, Air Ambulance, Aerial Advertising, VIP Charter Service, Agricultural Aviation, Search and Rescue, Helicopter Cargo, Aerial Firefighting and more.
Lots of this was already teased at the announcement last year, but there is one moment when you get out of your plane and take a pic of an animal that seems pretty brand new.
New Annapurna game now, which is so early 90s. Minidisc player, cutie headphones, skateboarding, references to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Teen angst but with flying?
"Your greatest memories are locked in music".
Game is called Mixtape. Coming 2025.
Winter Burrow coming early 2025 - a lovely looking survival game about a tiny mouse that's 100% going to make me cry.
Fragpunks - 5v5 hero shooter with cards that can change gameplay. Coming 2025.
Definitely felt like there was a tease for a morality system in that dialogue.
Humphrey seems to have an ex that's back and it's problematic.
Coming 2025. Day One Game Pass, Xbox Series X, and PC.
Fable now and we're got a new character introduction - who may be voiced by Super Hans from Peep Show (Matt King).
Actual date for that DLC - October 8.
That cinematic certainly isn't for the gore-phobic.
Opening cinematic is all about a young woman talking to what she thinks is her dead grandmother, but obviously it's not.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred coming October.
New playable class, new region, new story content.
Perfect Dark - day one with Game Pass but no date.
Matt Booty here to talk now:
"first look at gameplay, we can't wait to share more".
'Stop Carrington's attack' is the directive in the corner, with subobjects for finding the Black Site and escaping the ambush.
Switches to full on combat, first person gunplay with some melee attacks.
This is the first we've seen of this game since the original announcement. Very crips visuals, stealth gameplay focus as you'd hope, lots of gadgets and equipment.
"There's only one way forward, find the truth".
OMG IT'S PERFECT DARK
Age of Mythology Retold - coming September 4, 2024.
Strategy game. Game Pass, Xbox Series X, PC.
Brand new trailer for Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, coming July 18, 2024.
Game Pass, Xbox Series X, PC.
New content for Sea of Thieves coming July 25.
No release date.
Naked Snake - has to find his own weapons and equipment, and food. "One man army".
Looks incredible.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater now?
World of Warcraft: The War Within coming 26 August 2024.
She's also got some kind of magical wing or cape? Looks badass.
2025 on PC and Xbox Series X.
We're getting our first look at gameplay here. Third person, with grappling hook to get around.
Combat is with the little hooks but seemingly with some sort of power attached. Defeating an enemy brings the flowers and nature back to an area that's otherwise full of red pustules.
South of Midnight up now with a very cool art style and 24-frame-esque animation.
Our hero is riding on the back of a giant fish.
Expedition 33 coming 2025.
Looks pretty cool actually, lots of dramatic boss fights and stunning backdrops. Fo9ur main characters, who all seem to be playable in combat at least.
New game from Kepler Interactive here.
Fallout 76: Skyline Valley details being outlined in a new trailer now.
New Vault 63 details, which is how the DLC starts out with you hearing an explosion and then finding the Vault 63 door.
You can play as a Ghoul starting 2025.
Much more horror sci-fi vibes than the core game.
That's coming 2024, but no details on when.
New content coming to the base game tonight including new locations, new gear, new bounties, and new custom content from Bethesda and the community.
"Until there's no more you, only us"
That's not sinister at all.
Starfield: Shattered Space DLC up now - and it looks like it's all about the Va'ruun.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard there with a loose Fall 2024 release date and confirmation that some of our old pals are returning.
No release date for State of Decay 3 - not even a window.
If you can call a zombie game beautiful, then that's what this trailer is.
State of Decay 3 up now from Undead Labs.
Taking a softer tone with the vocals questioning who the zombies were before the whole undead thing.
Doom: The Dark Ages coming 2025.
You can load a skull into a grinder and then it turns it into bullets. Is that the most Doom thing ever? I think so.
Doom but make it medieval?
Bethesda world premiere up first.
First COD game that's coming to Game Pass Day One.
Treyarch and Raven working on it. 10 years since COD was last in an Xbox show.
We're getting a look at the campaign, multiplayer and zombies later.
It's set in the 1990s, after the Cold War ends where the "truth is not what it seems".
This seems to be the full reveal trailer, complete with The Prodigy as backing track.
Oh we're starting with Call of Duty then eh? Start as we mean to end it.
Here we go!
It's also a wonder whether Xbox will mention any of the controversies that have occurred in recent months too. There's been a lot -mass layoffs at Activision, thecutting of ties with Toys for Bob, thecancellation of a new Blizzard survival game, and the incredibly sad and shockingclosure of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks.
Just 5 minutes to go until the showcase now, you can tune in right here:
The other pretty sure bet is that Bethesda Game Studios will give us a good look at Starfield: Shattered Space, the first expansion for its space RPG. We just had a big May update for the game that introduced a tonne of quality of life features, so much so that many of us have gone back to the game - particularly for the removal of over encumbrance - but the details on the DLC have been few and far between.
There's also STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. With its release date currently set for September 5, I wouldn't be surprised if we got a new trailer today at the Xbox Games Showcase, detailing more about this highly-anticipated new game.
State of Decay 3 should also be a contender to appear at the Xbox Games Showcase today. There was a leak that seemingly confirmed a trailer is set to drop today, which is good because we've not heard from developer Undead Labs for years now.
Let's take another look at that reveal trailer shall we?
Of course, all eyes will be on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which only got fully revealed with its title earlier this year. It's currently got a loose release window of this fall, but I'd imagine that will get fully confirmed at today's showcase.
In development at MachineGames, the game's story will take place between the Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade movies, around 1937. It'll start at the iconic Marshall College where Jones teaches, but from there, we'll be traveling the globe for answers, including the Vatican, Egypt, and the Himalayas.
The gameplay looks great - as you'd expect from FPS experts MachineGames - with plenty of stealth and puzzle solving in between taking out Nazis with your gun and whip. While the majority is first-person, the game will also occasionally pull back to third-person to let you take in Indy in his full splendour.
Another one from last year's showcase was Clockwork Revolution. Another very cool trailer that gave serious BioShock vibes. Again no details on this one since then either.
Another game that was showed off for the first time at last year's Summer Game Fest Xbox Showcase was South of Midnight.
Honestly one of my favorite trailers for some time, it's got that creepy cool vibe going on with promises of "a fantastical and macabre third-person action-adventure set in the American Deep South".
So what about those games, then eh? Let's leave Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 out of this chat as we absolutely know it's getting a full reveal at its dedicated post-show Direct.
My personal pick would be to see more of Fable. We got that epic full trailer at last year's event complete with Richard Ayoade as Dave the giant and 'vegetable enthusiast', but we've not heard anything about the game since.
We got some glimmers of gameplay from this trailer, some magic use and combat, but we did get a fantastic sense that new developer Playground Games (of Forza Horizon fame) is going to retain the British sense of humor that's always been a staple of the series.
In his predictions for this Xbox Games Showcase, our own Xbox expert (Xpert?) Josh West said he wants to see a little less conversation and a little more action, please.
Josh West
"Looking at the lineup ofupcoming Xbox Series X games, I find myself reconnecting with why I became so drawn to the Xbox platform in its halcyon years: the promise of PC-quality play on console; the framework to take online multiplayer to new, unassailable heights; and a commitment to delivering best-in-class experiences within the 'core' shooter, role-play, and racing niches. Sadly, that message became diluted over time as Xbox waged a war for input one and spent a generation cycle dealing with the aftermath."
So now, we basically just need some games.
The report goes though that this snazzy new Universal Controller will be sold standalone but also debut with the Xbox Series X refresh that was also detailed in the leak.
The big takeaways from that leak were that it's going to ditch the chunky cuboid design, and opt for a tall cylindrical shape that completely ditches the disc drive.
It'll still have a power button, pairing button, and USB-C port but it's unclear how much difference there will be in size between the two from the concept designs alone.
We also don't know what the price difference will be - good or bad. The documents say it'll be the "same great price", but again these are from 2022. The RRP of the Xbox Series X is still $499, but if you get a good deal you can get one now for around $399.
According to that report, it's also supposedly going to include wide "build improvements" and "improved longevity", with things like new modular thumbsticks, haptic feedback, quieter buttons, and more.
The docs had it listed as a May 2024 launch, but seeing as those docs were from May 2022 no doubt things have changed since then.
I personally think it's pretty unlikely that Xbox announces new hardware today, but hey I've been wrong before. I personally would love to see the controller refresh that was detailed in the documents that were leaked as part of the Activision acquisition.
That is said to retain the same design as the current pads, but be quite the upgrade in terms of features. It'll allegedly have Xbox Wireless 2, Bluetooth 5.2 and Direct-to-Cloud functionality to improve overall connectivity and reduce latency regardless of what you're connected to.
But, more importantly for my wireless loving ass, it'll apparently include a rechargeable, swappable, battery as standard. Goodbye AA batteries, be GONE.
Let's start with the biggest rumor but also potentially most interesting, and that's the reports that Xbox could be about to reveal an Xbox handheld console.
Now, it's a little farfetched perhaps, but rumors of an Xbox handheld have been doing the rounds for a number of years now.
What's not clear is what kind of form that could take. A mini Series S? An Android powered streaming device? A cloud-based dedicated console? Or a genuine Game Pass powered Steam Deck rival?
Now myself and our Hardware Editor, Phil, agree that if an Xbox handheld finally shows up during the Xbox Games Showcase, we hope it’s not a PlayStation Portal rival. I just want to be able to access my Game Pass games on a plane, train, or anywhere I damn please. Please.
So with around two hours left to go until the Xbox Games Showcase, let's take a little walk around the Xbox gardens to see what we could expect to pop up at today's event.
