January2024
News Starfield Wins Steam's 'Most Innovative Gameplay' Award
Despite its "mixed" reception
Starfield got off to an incredibly strong start last year - with 13 million players joining Constellation and making it Bethesda's "biggest launch" of all time. Now, to top it off, it's taken out one of Steam's 2023 awards. Despite having a "mixed" reception on Valve's digital platform and "mostly negative" recent...
December2023
News Starfield's Recent Review Rating Has Dropped To 'Mostly Negative' On Steam
New players don't seem to be getting on with Xbox's RPG
Just over a month ago, Starfield dropped to a 'Mixed' overall user rating on PC platform Steam, and at the time the game's recent reviews also matched up with the platform's overall 'mixed' rating. However, in the weeks since then, Bethesda's open-world RPG has seemingly been getting a more...
Feature In The End, Are You Happy With Xbox's First-Party Lineup For 2023?
What have you made of it?
After Xbox's much-documented barren spell in 2022, this year finally delivered some major first-party games to help fill out our 2023 gaming calendars. Largely bolstered by the recent addition of Bethesda alongside Xbox Game Studios, it's been quite a big year for Xbox with several AAA titles gracing the Game Pass library...
News Multiple Xbox Exclusives Nominated At BAFTAs, But None Make The 'Best Games' List
The nominees are in
Around a month ago we found out that Starfield wasn't going to be up for 'Game of the Year' at The Game Awards, and it's now the same case for this year's BAFTA ceremony. Although the winner won't be announced until next April, Starfield isn't in the running for 'Best Game' at the event - in fact, nothing from Xbox Game Studios...
News Xbox Studio Shares First Look At Concept Artwork For Marvel's Blade
"Here's some exclusive eye candy"
In the few days since Arkane Lyon officially revealed its upcoming Blade game we've been keen to see more, and today we're in luck! Arkane dev Sebastien Mitton has just shared some gorgeous concept art for the game - our first look at the title outside of its Game Awards reveal. In total there are three bits of...
News Phil Spencer & Co. Send Birthday Wishes To 'The Game That Changed Video Games Forever'
Happy Birthday, Marine
Few games are as influential to their respective genres as DOOM is to the first-person shooter, so it's hardly surprising to see lots of industry folks post online about the franchise's 30th birthday. Of course, the IP is now owned by Microsoft, and Phil Spencer & co. have hopped on social media to wish the first game a...
News Starfield 'A Tremendous Hit' And One Of Xbox's Top 10 Most-Played Games, Says Phil Spencer
"Thank you everybody for all the support on Starfield"
Starfield is a purely single-player affair, but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from playing Bethesda's new RPG for months and months. Speaking in a new interview at Brazilian convention CCXP, Xbox boss Phil Spencer discussed Starfield and how the game has been performing so far. First...
November2023
News Bethesda Has Started Responding To Negative User Reviews Of Starfield
They've taken notice of the game's 'Mixed' rating
Last week, we spotted that Starfield had dropped down to a 'Mixed' user rating on Steam after spending a good while in the 'Mostly Positive' category - and it seems that some of the negative reviews have got Bethesda's attention. Doing the rounds on social media are various Bethesda responses to...
News Steam Black Friday Sale Now Live, Get Up To 88% Off Xbox & Bethesda Titles
Including Starfield, Redfall and more
We have another round of Black Friday gaming deals now live, thanks to Steam's sales going up this week. Technically, Valve calls this its 'Autumn Sale', but it coincides with with the industry's range of Black Friday discounts so it's basically a Black Friday sale. Anyway, technicalities out of the way, you can...
News Bethesda Still Has 'About 250' Developers Working On Starfield
Even months after launch!
By now we know that Starfield was a gargantuan development effort for everyone working on the game at Bethesda Game Studios - it took the team almost a decade to make this thing happen. However, we weren't aware of just how many folks are still working on the title after it's shipped! Thanks to a new interview with Wired,...
News Bethesda's Starfield Drops To 'Mixed' User Reviews On Steam
The game's overall rating is now classed as 'Mixed'
The long-awaited Starfield finally released on Xbox and PC back in early September, and the consensus around launch was largely positive - including here at Pure Xbox where we scored the game 9/10. However, despite a decent Steam reception on release (the game sat at a 'Mostly Positive' rating for...
News Todd Howard Reflects On Morrowind's 'Huge Success' On Xbox, Admits It Kept Bethesda Going
"It became the second best-selling game behind Halo"
Industry legend Todd Howard recently got the chance to discuss the entire history of his video game career right up until the release of Starfield. He goes through Bethesda's many milestones over the years and also shares some extra insight about all of the projects he's worked on. One segment,...
News Metacritic Data Suggests 2023 Has Been The Best Year In Gaming For 20 Years
"2023 is one of the best years ever for video game releases"
There's no denying it's felt like a fantastic year for video games so far. 2023 has delivered some absolute bangers such as Alan Wake 2, Resident Evil 4 Remake and Baldur's Gate 3, alongside other platform exclusives like Nintendo's Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Data from Metacritic
News Xbox Developer MachineGames Opens Up New Studio In Sweden
Feed the machine
Wolfenstein developer MachineGames came under Xbox ownership when Microsoft acquired Bethesda in 2021, although we haven't seen the team produce a game of its own since the purchase. Still, we know they're working on a new Indiana Jones game, and they've just opened up a new studio to help that project progress. As rev
October2023
News Starfield's Monthly Active Users For September 2023 Only Beaten By One Game On Xbox
Any guesses as to which?
It's looking like Starfield has been a huge success for Xbox and Bethesda pretty much across the board. The game boosted Xbox console sales in the UK for the month of September, set a record for new Xbox Game Pass subscribers last month, and it seems to be doing incredibly well at keeping people playing as well.
News Here's A Look At Microsoft And Xbox's New Gaming Leadership Structure
See for yourself
It's been another big week for team Xbox with the latest announcement of a Microsoft reshuffle which sees some familiar faces promoted. Perhaps the biggest changes apart from Activision Blizzard, are the promotions of two execs. As noted in the initial announcement, Matt Booty is now 'president of game content and studios'...
News Microsoft Reshuffle Makes Huge Changes To Team Xbox, Matt Booty & Sarah Bond Promoted
We have a new structure in place at Xbox
Xbox is in the midst of making massive changes to its leadership structure, as a result of recent acquisitions like that of Bethesda Softworks and Activision Blizzard. As detailed by The Verge, multiple Xbox execs will hold new roles after the company reshuffle, including familiar faces like Sarah Bond and
News Xbox's New Marketing Campaign Is Producing Some Amazing Adverts In Europe
You won't miss these!
A week ago, Microsoft launched a brand-new Xbox marketing campaign - right after the company confirmed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Well, as it turns out, that campaign isn't limited to TV & YouTube ads (and giant s
News Starfield Launch Set Record For "Most Game Pass Subscriptions Added On A Single Day Ever"
According to Microsoft's CEO
Bethesda's new space RPG Starfield has been a huge success for Xbox since it arrived on Game Pass and multiple platforms in September. In less than a month it surpassed 10 million players and since then, it's had ongoing success in the charts. Now, in an update during Microsoft's latest earnings call for FY24 Q1, the...
News Xbox Gaming Revenue Up 9% YoY In Latest Earnings Report
Hardware revenue had a decline of 7%
Microsoft has released its earning results for FY24 Q1 and Xbox's gaming revenue is up by 9% year-over-year. Xbox's content and revenue services in this latest quarter grew, this time by 13%. It's driven by the growth of the Xbox Game Pass service and first-party content. Xbox hardware revenue had a decline of...
News Starfield Dev Proud Of The Game's Launch Despite Being 'Stressed For 2 Years Straight'
"Goddamn am I proud of what we achieved"
Starfield was in the works for a long time over at Bethesda Game Studios — long before Xbox bought the company — and it seems the game's protracted development period wasn't always easy to deal with. In a recent Twitter thread, BGS Design Director Emil Pagliarulo reflected on Starfield's development, and...
News 'Fallout Day Sale' Now Live On Xbox, Featuring Steep DLC Discounts
Crawl out through the fallout, baby
Slightly ahead of Xbox's typical digital deals roundup each and every Tuesday, a new Fallout-flavoured promotion has just gone live on the Xbox Store. These discounts mostly include Fallout games and their respective DLC packs - although Skyrim also manages to barge its way into the promo as well. Anyway, seeing...
News Redfall's Recent 60FPS Patch Might Not Be The Last, If Bethesda Gets Its Way
Redemption Arcane
So, the biggest Redfall patch yet finally arrived earlier this month - complete with the game's long-awaited 60FPS mode on Xbox Series X and S. It's been a long time coming and we're glad it's here, however this might not be the end of road for Arkane's first Xbox-exclusive IP. According to Windows Central's Jez Corden, Bethesda...
Video Redfall's 60FPS Update Tested Across Xbox Series X And Xbox Series S
Redfall Update 2 is here
After months and months of silence, Arkane delivered 'Update 2' for Redfall late last week - including the game's long-awaited 60FPS mode. The new patch has been getting good feedback so far, but we wanted to check it out for ourselves and see how things are shaping up. We've not put enough time into Redfall Update 2 jus
Talking Point One Month On From Launch, How Are You Feeling About Starfield?
Has it lived up to your expectations?
Believe it or not, it's been a whole month since the long-awaited Starfield arrived on Xbox Game Pass. It's been a busy month that's flown by, but we have no doubt that in the time since launch, many of you in the Pure Xbox community have been putting plenty of time into Xbox's huge open world RPG. So... how...