Here’s a Rundown of Everything at The Xbox Games Showcase [23/07/2020]

A lot has happened since Xbox’s previous conference in June. We had an awesome Sony event; Ubisoft ran their event in spite of a slate of serious allegations they didn’t address. Some things did stay the same, Nintendo hasn’t done a big event, and no one has revealed a price point for next-gen consoles in the longest game of capitalism chicken. With the excitement of promised Halo Infinite gameplay and rumours abound, Microsoft had a lot to live up to in their July Xbox Games Showcase. So, here’s what they had.

PRE-SHOW

Geoff Keighley along with Jacksepticeye, Laurenzside and Austin Evans opened up the pre-show to hype the console and the conference, along with a discussion of their hopes for the show. Additional personalities would pop up throughout the pre-show including Danny O’Dwyer, Arin Hanson, Alanah Pearce, Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins and many others.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age S

Dragon Quest is coming to Xbox! Yuji Horii, game designer for the most recent entry, was on hand to announce the latest entry of the 34-year long series will be arriving on Xbox and via Xbox Game Pass (get prepared to hear that a lot). A gameplay trailer showed the game’s classic turn-based combat as well as all the open-world features looking beautiful, with the game arriving December 4th.

BIG TROUBLE!

Exomecha

TwistedRed, a small studio started in 2019, showed off an impressive gameplay trailer for their new FPS, showing boots-on-the-ground combat combined with ridiculous large scale mechs with swords and mechanised dragons. Exomecha will be a multiplayer free-to-play game with action that looks promisingly punchy. The sleeper hit of the pre-show is scheduled for release in 2021.

Watch Dogs: Legion

It feels like we’ve had nine million trailers for the latest game in the edgy hacker series. The usual funny trailer came with the enemies we saw at Ubisoft Forward and more story set-up spliced with some gameplay. At least this trailer had an Aston Martin DB5 firing a rocket. Not much new stuff here to discuss, unsurprising given the amount of news we’ve already received, but Clint Hockings next experiment continues to preview excellently.

Echo Generation

This game had a gorgeous looking art style that looked like a splicing of Lego and pixel-art, with turn-based combat as well as some intriguing looking enemies and puzzle-solving and a tone befitting that of teen sci-fi stories like Stranger Things. Echo Generation looks like a quaint and unique game from Canadian studio Cococucumber. Hopefully, it has the story and gameplay loop to keep it fresh.

Hello Neighbour 2

In a surprising twist, a sequel has emerged for home-surveillance-and-snooping simulator Hello Neighbour. Gameplay showed the classic blend of stealth and quick scouting in which the player stalked a bird-like creature with the original game’s Neighbour making an appearance at the end. It certainly has a graphical update, but one has to wonder what’s actually new on the gameplay front.

ID@Xbox is building the list… wait no that was Sony in 2014, my bad.

ID@Xbox

Next up was Xbox’s trademark ID@Xbox montage. As usual, it’s a bit hard to get a great read on anything in the montage, but notable games in here included The Artful Escape, Tunic, 12 Minutes and more. In particular, seeing The Artful Escape again is wonderful given how promising it has looked in all its trailers, while 12 Minutes continues to intrigue.

I had a really good pun for this but now I’ve forgotten it. Your lose honestly.

Balan Wonderworld

Yuji Naka, lead programmer on the classic Sonic games, creator of the new brand Balan Nation and apparently top hat enthusiast, announced a new action game Balan Wonderworld. Set in a musical theatre, you play through stages created by the internal strife of the theatre’s cast. The game will see you finding costumes and using them to explore new abilities. There certainly is a jovial tone reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts (which makes sense given Square Enix is publishing) and the trailer more than anything promises a wonderful presentation, yet the gameplay also looked full of potential. Balan Wonderworld will be arriving in Spring 2021 and will support Smart Delivery on Xbox.

MAIN SHOW

Halo Infinite

Xbox opened up the main show with the big guns and the most hyped game of the presentation. Halo Infinite was given a substantial gameplay trailer which looked to blend the previous Halo 5’s solid gameplay and punchy weaponry with what looks to be a more intimate narrative and classic Halo feel. A new titular ringworld was present, and according 343’s Chris Lee it’s bigger than the last two games combined. Add to this a neat new grappling hook mechanic that looks manageable for new players yet versatile and you have a gameplay loop that seems fundamentally more simple than previous game but hopefully more engaging too. It helps that the HUD seems much less busy here. A somewhat open-world should bring the best quality of Halo: Combat Evolved’s classic mission The Silent Cartographer and you get the sense this could be an excellent blend of old and new.

So the gameplay looked good, but boy these screenshot don’t do Infinite any favours.

State of Decay 3

Undead Labs has been consistently building up an excellent and deep zombie survival series since the Xbox 360. Whilst this was the first trailer of many to be primarily CGI, it was intriguing to see the promise of hunting mechanics with a zombie deer present. 

After this trailer, we had the only appearance of Phil Spencer, who was mainly here to announce that everything here would be included in Xbox Game Pass. A big thing to note that was hammered home consistently during the show and every other piece of marketing coming out of Microsoft.

Forza Motorsport

From there, we would shift gears into the next entry in the Forza Motorsport series. Again, lacking true gameplay here we would see some gorgeous looking supercars bending around corners and overtaking with some “in-engine” footage. Again, little to note aside from some sleek-looking curves on the vehicles, new console, more polygons!

Everwild

Rare, moving forward from Sea of Thieves, showed off their new game Everwild after it’s announcement at XO19. Again, in a slightly overbearing cinematic trailer, we saw nomadic characters in tune with nature. The wonderful relaxed arts style certainly is entrancing, but this feels very much like a mystery in terms of what players will actually get up to, not dissimilar to the vague marketing of Rare’s last game Sea of Thieves.

The game is probably going to make us cry, isn’t it?

Tell Me Why

DONTNOD made an appearance with their new IP and one of my personal favourites of the show, Tell Me Why. The tale of two siblings exploring their crime-affected childhood certainly looks to be a personal and melancholy episodic story, something DONTNOD certainly has a deft touch for. Episode 1 of this series will be available on August 27th.

Ori And The Will Of The Wisps

A quick update from Moon Studios who will be releasing an updated version of the latest entry of the series based on sad owls. The Xbox Series X version will be running at 120fps, with full HDR and Smart Delivery for Xbox One players, a welcome update given the initial launch problems the game suffered from.

Obsidian’s Trio of Announcements

Obsidian took the screen next in a few announcements. First up was the announcement of the first of two updates for last year’s critically acclaimed The Outer Worlds in the form of The Peril of Gorgon. In a funny gameplay trailer contrasted with a 30’s radio drama voice, we seem to be taking on dungeons with all sorts of creatures on an asteroid which promises “DANGER” and “INTRIGUE”. Seems dangerously intriguing.

We also got a trailer for another game that premiered at XO19, survival game Grounded, set in gardens as players play as minuscule humans building forts to survive ladybirds and most importantly, spiders. Don’t worry, an arachnophobia mode has been announced for those with the aversion to the eight-legged creatures. The game looks solid but ultimately unspectacular, maybe Obsidian will bring some of their patented charm to Honey I Shrunk the Video Game.

Obsidian have gone from having to kickstart their games to being a three game studio. only took 17 years.

The final and most exciting announcement in this block was the reveal (via a cinematic trailer) of Obsidian’s new IP, Avowed. With a brilliant fantasy style and first-person style combat, this could be one to keep an eye out for.

As Dusk Falls

New studio Interior/Night introduced their debut title next, an interactive drama set in the southwest of America in which two families recover after a traumatising event at a Motel. That’s it for now. We got a cinematic trailer with a striking artstyle but as it stands a lack of gameplay is the most noteworthy thing.

Ninja Theory

Dom Matthews was on hand to provide a small update to Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II in that it’ll be set in Iceland. That was literally it. A bit disappointing here, not to get more concrete details, this (total conjecture on my part) might be one of the titles significantly delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, there was no mention of Bleeding Edge here, which is the least surprising part of this conference.

Psychonauts 2

Jack Black is here! Instead of being here with Kyle Gass, he’s doing a song featured in Psychonauts 2. The gameplay here looks nice if a familiar as far as third-person action platformers go, but some kaleidoscopic madness and plenty of eyeballs kept things fun. There’s still no concrete day for a release besides 2020.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light

In one of the more interesting updates, Sarah Bond announced that Destiny 2 would be coming to Xbox Game Pass with all its expansions in tow. Along with this, Bungie will be releasing a Series X version in the form of Destiny 2: Beyond Light. This is the perfect kind of game for Game Pass and the game is getting a mobile release of sorts in the form of xCloud streaming (technically you could already do this on Stadia but… Stadia).

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. you’re looking awful Metro-y.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

Game World’s survival horror franchise returns with a new installment after the previous iteration of the game was canceled.  The game based loosely off Tarkovsky’s classic film was shown off with ANOTHER cinematic trailer. At this point, I'm convinced I am merely a construct within a cinematic trailer. We saw horror stuff in this, abandoned theme parks, dark hallways, a fetus in a jar, all the classics from the stock library under the term ‘spooky’. With the franchise finally coming to console this is definitely the most accessible the series has been already but that isn’t saying much.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

Left 4 Dead fans can rejoice at the prospect of a new four-player FPS where you shoot hordes of infected. Except this time it's with the space marines in the Warhammer universe, with different classes of soldier to play as seemingly. This is something that I really hope to see gameplay soon from but expect to be similar to sister Warhammer game, Vermintide. Alas, that may be aways off given its 2021 release window.

Editors note: OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH M-

Tetris Effect Connected

Microsoft, in the most egregious example of getting something late on, then moved on to announce a new version of the excellent Tetris Effect for the Series X when it launches. The game will release with the addition of new competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes and expanded singleplayer content, a welcome addition to an already wonderful release.

The Gunk

In the midst of cinematic production lies a gameplay trailer! HUZZAH! The Gunk (great name) sees you travelling through an alien world populated with lush fauna that is being eroded by the titular substance and shares a close resemblance to the symbiote that unleashes Venom. Just saying. The game certainly looks easy-on-the-eyes and has a wonderful colour palette. However, the gameplay also lacked pace for a truly adventurous feel. Hopefully, further gameplay will shine The Gunk in a better light.

The Medium

One of the most exciting games for me, The Medium continues to look like a dark story full of intriguing exploration and a great premise based on the rendering of the titular protagonists’ two worlds simultaneously. The gameplay seems to be a narratively driven Bloober Team game, no doubt meaning some stealth sections as we hide from deadly foes in one dimension or another. If the game can use this mechanic to craft situations you have to avoid in both worlds and make them varied, this could be an excellent horror experience from the folks behind the Amnesia franchise.

PSO2 released in 2012. In 2019 it showed up at Mircosoft’s E3 show, now it’s at their big console showcase. Is Phil Spencer just a huge Phantasy Star dork?

Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis

More gameplay! This streak of gameplay is weird, but SEGA’s long-running MMORPG will bring its complex battles, heavily stylised character design along with a new world to a Series X enhanced version of the game in 2021. Despite PSO2 releasing on Xbox One already the question still remains, is there an audience for this sort of MMORPG on console?

CrossfireX

Smilegate have been keen to launch their long-running FPS on Xbox, with a multiplayer beta running a few weeks ago that left little to be desired given its identity crisis. However, the developer of Control and Alan Wake, Remedy, is stepping in to launch a campaign with the console release. The trailer had some solid snippets of FPS gameplay, but its overbearing explosions and cliches spouted every two seconds remind me of some of the worst Call of Duty moments, where the character is sacrificed for the adrenaline rush of everything blowing up around you. It didn’t help there was a slow, moody version of “X Gon’ Give it to Ya” playing throughout. Hopefully, Remedy can deliver something that is worthy of their standards to the Asia market’s CS: GO but this didn’t look too promising.

One more thing… FABLE!

For how long this game has been an open secret it’s a little odd we only got a logo.

It’s the worst kept secret in gaming, but it’s a welcome thing to end on. Whilst sadly there isn’t any gameplay to look at, we got 20 seconds to confirm that Playground Games, developers of the superlative Forza Horizon series, are working on a new Fable! We know nothing about what you’ll actually do, but it exists!

With that, Microsoft wrapped up the Xbox Games Showcase. A good showcase. I stress the word good, as it ultimately fell short of better owing to its overreliance on the cinematic trailers and inability to really surprise beyond Fable and Halo. But when you consider that Halo Infinite looked really firmly constructed, Fable is back, a number of neat looking gems graced us and most importantly, all these games are available for Xbox Game Pass users, they did a really good job of showing an across-the-board solid lineup.

Xbox did a great job of selling Xbox Game Pass and the games in it to its current users. Is this enough though to tempt people to buy a new console? That it’s far less certain. That’s where the issue truly lies.