The biggest news and trailers from the summer 2023 Xbox Games Showcase
The biggest news and trailers from the summer 2023 Xbox Games Showcase
It may not actually be E3 this year, and it may be gone for good, but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft sticking to the schedule as the only major platform holder to still hold its big conference. That now comes in the form of the Xbox Games Showcase.
In just under two hours its showcase was packed with non-stop exciting game trailers, enough to make us forget Redfall had ever happened. Aside from a few brief guest presenters like Keanu Reeves, Microsoft also wisely let the games, primarily shown running in-engine, do most of the talking.
11 of the trailers came from Microsoft’s own Xbox studios, including brand new announcements such as South of Midnight and Clockwork Revolution, though Starfield was naturally the show’s headliner with its own dedicated deep-dive at the end. There were even more announcements from third party publishers, and the best news is that you can play almost all of them on Game Pass from day one.
While you can watch the near two-hour stream here, we’ve rounded up what we considered to be the highlights for your convenience right below. So scroll on and get hyped.
Fable
It’s admittedly more than the teaser we first got back in 2020 that confirmed the beloved RPG series was getting a reboot courtesy of Forza Horizon developer Playground Games, but even then, the new trailer for Fable is rather lacking in specifics.
Mostly, it shows that you’ll be getting up to combat, drunken revelry at a tavern, while that very British sense of humour is still very much intact, as shown with the appearance of comedian Richard Ayaode, who seems to be starring as a giant attempting to squash our hero.
It at least looks and sounds very much like the Fable fans love then updated for the current generation, rather than the misjudged Fable Legends, a live-service MOBA ended up getting cancelled and led to the shuttering of series creator Lionhead Studios. It’s just a shame we still have no idea when to expect we can play it.
Release date: TBC
South of Midnight
We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games has been rather quiet since it was acquired by Xbox way back in 2018 but it’s now finally revealed its new game, South of Midnight, an action-adventure set in the American south with a heavy dose of magical realism.
Sporting a beautiful stop-motion-like art style, the game takes place in the modern day but through a southern gothic lens where myths and monsters just happen to be real, while you play as protagonist Hazel on a quest to repair a broken world.
Again, this is just a first look so we have little clue how exactly it will play but the trailer certainly gives off a unique gothic and magical vibe that we can’t wait to find out more about.
Release date: TBC
Star Wars Outlaws
Following an announcement back in 2021 that Ubisoft was working on the very first open world Star Wars game, the result is Star Wars Outlaws, which feels like the polar opposite of Jedi Survivor, apart from also having a protagonist with a short three-letter first name.
As Kay, a sort of female Han Solo, adventuring across the galaxy with adorable alien companion Nix, it’s your chance to live the ‘scoundrel fantasy’, as you get deep in the muck with the galaxy’s criminal underworld on an a heist of a lifetime.
It sounds very much like the kind of open world Star Wars game fans have been dreaming of in a post-Mando world. While this reveal was all CGI, a first gameplay walkthrough will be shown off during the Ubisoft Forward showcase on 12th June.
Release date: 2024
Avowed
Although Obsidian did release the very excellent narrative-focused Pentiment last year, fans of the Fallout: New Vegas studio have been more eager to see it return to another epic role-playing adventure, which Avowed is certainly shaping up to be.
It’s set in the same world as the studio’s Pillars of Eternity series, only this is a first-person experience much like Skyrim, whether you’re swinging your axe, conjuring sorcery, or just giving someone the boot. It also looks like you’ll be able to combine magic and melee in satisfying ways, such as freezing an enemy with your ice staff in one hand before shattering them to pieces with your weapon in the other.
It’s certainly got a lot more colour and humour than some of the more grim dark role-playing games we’ve been seeing more of late, and given that Microsoft has at least given a 2024 window, we could be playing it before Fable.
Release date: 2024
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
Flight Simulator felt like a dream getaway during the pandemic, but its sequel is set to take the flight simulation experience to the next level. To sum it up, it might make sense to rename is Flight Job Simulator.
As the announcement trailer showed, there’s a staggering amount you can do in the air besides simply flying from A to B, as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will allow you to try out a huge variety of flight careers, including aerial firefighting, search and rescue, helicopter cargo transportation, air ambulance, agricultural aviation, mountain rescue, skydive aviation, aerial construction, and so much more. It won’t even be limited to planes as you can even run hot air balloon trips.
It also announced for current Flight Sim players a Dune crossover which will release in November to coincide with the cinema release of Dune: Part 2.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Of all the third party reveals, there wasn’t one any bigger than Cyberpunk 2077, even if it’s the only game from the showcase not part of Game Pass.
Its hotly anticipated story expansion, Phantom Liberty, is arriving in September and will see players working with a group of activated sleeper agents, including a new character played by Idris Elba, on a mission to rescue the President of the New United States of America, which also takes them to new district Dogtown.
CD Projekt Red is no stranger to substantial story expansions, with The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine considered perhaps the best DLC ever and better than most base games, so we could be looking at a winner here when we return to Night City.
Release date: 26th September
Jusant
Call it the Breath of the Wild effect, but there’s something very therapeutic and satisfying about climbing cliff faces, which seems to be the main thrust of Jusant a meditative climbing action-puzzle game.
Considering it’s from Life is Strange creators Don’t Nod, the narrative is apparently told without any spoken dialogue, although your young adventuring protagonist will be accompanied by a strange alien companion in their backpack who’s made entirely of water.
The strange environments look fantastic and it looks like besides climbing you’ll also have a variety of other tools to get up these diverse biomes, such as using a harness to wall-run. But we’re mostly in it for the vibes.
Release date: Autumn 2023
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Winning the award for most bizarre game title, Metaphor: ReFantazio has been a long time coming from Japanese developer Studio Zero, whose team members were behind the cult classics Japanese role playing games Persona 3, Persona 4 and Persona 5.
Rather than the modern-day real-world high-school settings of those games, this is meant to be the studio’s attempt to make a more classic fantasy turn-based role-playing game, although this trailer shows it’s still very much dripping in style, from its unique painterly anime aesthetic to its striking menu screens.
Release date: Early 2024
Clockwork Revolution
There’s a lot of Bioshock Infinite vibes with this new role-playing game from InXile, set in a steampunk world where time-bending combat mechanics comes to the fore, if you thought Tears of the Kingdom’s Recall ability wasn’t mind-bending enough.
Its first-person combat still allows you get violently creative, but it does seem like time travel is the real draw. Set in the Victorian-era Avalon that’s been time-manipulated by its ruthless dictator Lady Ironwood to ensure she gets richer while the poor get poorer, you’ll get to play with time to try to right these wrongs. Of course, if you’ve heard about the butterfly effect, changing the past comes with consequences.
Release date: TBC
Starfield
The star of the show (no pun intended) of course belonged to Bethesda’s ridiculously ambitious space role-playing game, Starfield. Seriously, it’s truly mind-boggling, even if we’re compelled to be cautious given the studio’s reputation on polish come launch day and similarly infinite promises from No Man’s Sky (a great game now, but which took many years after release to get there).
But if even a fraction of Starfield’s vision is realised, we’re looking at over a thousand unique planets that can be explored (Bethesda’s Todd Howard one-upping his famous line about mountains, “See that moon? You can go there”), creating a unique detailed character with a rich backstory and optional traits that will affect how others react to you, ships you can fully customise and staff during your travels, combat where firing a gun in zero-gravity will actually push you back, and so much more.
Feel free to dive into the 45-minute deep-dive for yourself, and pray that Bethesda sticks the landing come September. If it does, this will be the game everyone talks about this generation.
Release date: 6th September
What else is coming?
Some other Microsoft first-party trailers included Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga, which while looking visually and aurally haunting was light on detail apart from a vague 2024 release window. More assuring for motorheads is the news that Forza Motorsport is releasing on 10th October. Arriving this summer is a free Monkey Island story expansion for Sea of Thieves, surely the greatest pirate crossover yet.
There was a smattering of announcements from Japanese publishers, including Persona 3 Reload, a remake of a much lauded cult classic, another Persona spin-off, Persona 5 Tactics, as well as an amusing teaser for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which Sega will surely share more at the RGG Summit later this week on 16th June. Capcom also announced Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, which looks a bit like Monster Hunter Rise but with Japanese demon spirits.
While the emphasis was on games, Microsoft even had time to reveal a new model of Xbox Series S, this time in carbon black with 1TB of storage, costing $349/£299. Pre-orders are live now and it will release on 1st September.
Alan Wen
