Here's the Rundown of Everything in Today's Inside Xbox [07/05/2020]

Today Microsoft showed off the first gameplay of Xbox Series.  After several days of hype building online and an impressive reveal trailer for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla last week promising gameplay at this event people were ready to see some games get played. But that didn’t really happen. What we got felt more like a bizarre sizzle reel from the halfway through an E3 showcase. Heavily edited trailers which were technically in-engine for most but not all the games were shown off, with little fanfare and less to write home about. So let’s take a deeper dive into what was announced and discuss why it was a bit of a letdown.

Bright Memory Infinite

Coming from a one-man dev team out of China Bright Memory has been an impressive demo on PC for the best part of a year now. Seeing what appeared to be as yet unseen gameplay for this samurai-shoot-‘em-up was a nice surprise as many hadn’t even expected it to come to consoles until well after its full release on PC. Announcing Bright Memory to be a full console experience is an interesting statement of intent for what is currently just an Early Access tease but it remains to be seen if there is enough there to sustain a whole game

I heard you like Cyberpunk. What if that but like 10x?

DiRT 5

Codemasters has recently been teasing the return of the DiRT franchise after a muted reception to DiRT 4. DiRT 5 looks to be a return to the stylish presentation and sleek look of the previous games but it was hard to glean much else from the short teaser. But damn, if those cars didn’t look muddy!

Scorn

Bet you £50 I could slip this into an Alien art book and no one would notice.

This next trailer had no indication of gameplay but looked like an impressive realisation of one of H.R. Giger's sketchbooks. Not enough was shown to be able to make any guesses at what the game is or how it plays but er, yep, it looked gross.

Chorus 

Deepsliver showed off their first next-gen title with what look if Wing Commander decided to get spooky with the help of the red lights from Control. Visually very impressive but again it was hard to discern how much of the footage shown was gameplay.

Madden 21

EA is scheduled to have a Summer Games Fest EA PLAY event on the 12th so it was a surprise to see them show up here in any capacity. This surprise was quickly tempered by an American Football player telling us how excited he was for the next Madden game instead of really showing anything. As disappointing as that may have been for some, it was comforting in a way, returning to all those times watching EA E3 press conferences when I knew it was safe to go make a cuppa and not miss anything important.

Vampires: Masquerade Bloodlines 2

Paradox Interactive was announced to publishing and co-developing this follow-up to the cult classic with the newly formed Hardsuit Labs at E3 last year. The game seems to have come a long way from its apparent rough state at that show but once again it was hard to tell if any of this vertical slice will be representative of the final product. We will say though this trailer had everything: a packed club, moody vampires and a guy dancing around a Christmas tree with humans posed like mannequins with wires.

Call of the Sea

*Extremely 1930s radio voice* "It’s one of those new fangled electronic video game games, ya see!”

Newly formed Madrid studio, Out of The Blue Games showed off their first game with what felt like the most gameplay of any of the trailers. Call of the Sea is a 1930s first-person puzzle adventure game set in the South Pacific that sees a woman explore a dense Island in search of her husband. Anyone into Sea of Thieves will likely be drawn to the polygonal cell-shaded art style, and it will be interesting what else this game has to offer

Ascent

This trailer gave off extremely strong Cyberpunk vibes, thanks to a gritty futuristic, alien filled cityscape. However, hopes of a spiritual successor to the pre-reboot version of Prey 2 were dashed when it was shown to be an isometric action game. The game still looked mighty impressive and in a time when the Diablo name could be doing better, there is always potential.

The Medium

We got yet another moody cinematic trailer for what looks like a story-based horror indie title.  Bloober Team, following up their announcement of a next-gen redux of Observer, showed off a new psychological horror game with music from the famed Silent Hill composer, Akira Yamaoka. You’ll play as the titular medium jumping between two plains of reality with all the creepy atmosphere the studio is known for.

Scarlet Nexus

Bandai Namco showed off their first next-gen game with a stylish action hack and slash which looks very anime. Taking a leap out of the Astral Chain school of naming conventions by pairing two cool words together, Scarlet Nexus showed glimpses of impressive fast-paced gameplay. However, in a world where the likes of Nier: Automata and Devil May Cry 5 exist it will take a lot for a game like this to catch on.

Second Extinction

You say potato, I saw potato. You say Turok, I say Second Extinction.

Systemic Reaction, a subsidiary of Avalanche Studios (best known for Mad Max and the Just Cause games) were at the showcase. Their 3-player co-op shooter looks to be heavily inspired by the likes of Turok with plenty of dinosaur hunting action. Hopefully the draw distance is better in this game.

Yakuza 7 

It was a surprise when it was announced that the recent Yakuza games would be coming to Xbox One and Game Pass over the coming months at a previous Inside Xbox. However that certainly didn’t prepare us for the first western trailer of Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon to be at an Xbox event after years of Sony exclusivity. We especially weren’t prepared Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio to announce it as a Series X launch title but hey, here we are and that game still looks great.

Look at this man’s hair and tell me this won’t be the greatest launch title ever.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla 

This was what the showcase was building towards, a gameplay trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, except not really. The trailer started with the disclaimer that the game is still in development and only meant to be “representative of Xbox Series X gameplay”, while certainly better than going through the Watch Dogs announcement controversy it was still worrying how little actual footage we got. Everything they have been saying about this upcoming entry in the series has left people feeling positive so hopes are still high.

Someone has gotten a bunch of The Witcher 3 all over my Assasin’s Creed. And I am fine with that.

However, this Valhalla trailer played into what made the entire event feel lacking. These games looked impressive but not once did we see what playing a game on a Series X looked like. We’ve heard both manufacturers talk about how many teraflops they have and its all well and good to tell us all this footage is in in-engine, but these phrases and numbers mean very little and tells us nothing about why we should care about the next generation of game consoles. For a first glimpse into the next generation of gaming, it was baffling as it felt like the show was only getting started as it ended. On top of that as the first Summer Game Fest affiliated event, it left a lot to be desired, and many are now feeling much less enthused by what was deemed the E3 Killer only weeks ago. 

There is many more Summer Game Fest events scheduled for the next few months and we’ll be keeping a close eye on the to see how the show developers. 

As for the next generation of consoles, the ball is now back in Sony’s court as the weeks tick by and neither Microsoft or there rival seem prepared to announce a release date or price during the uncertain times.